Ink Mixing: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Colours And Beyond

[Ash1]

Hello,

I know that to get secondary colors you need to mix the primary colors together, regardless of whether you use Red, Blue and Yellow or Cyan, Magenta and Yellow as primary colors. But how do you get tertiary colors? I have looked online (I can't remember exactly where) and found that to get tertiary you either mix the secondary colors together or mix the primary colors to the secondary colors. I assume only one can be correct but am not sure which one it is. And can you go further? I have heard of quaternary colors and assume that to get them you either mix the tertiary colors together or mix the secondary colors to the tertiary colors but I do not know which one is correct. And is there a limit to how many times you can mix the colors together or can you mix them indefinitely. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Ash

[macaddicted]

There's a great mix chart somewhere here on the site. Can't look right now, but I'll try to post it if someone doesn't beat me to it.

 

If you're going to try mixing I'd recommend using the cyan, magenta, yellow, black system (CMYK) if for no other reason than you can find CMYK color guides online very easily and convert those to ink mixing proportions.

[chewytulip]

You might mean this thread:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/40629-noodlers-cmyk-color-mixes/page-2

 

I think post number 35 on that thread might actually answer a lot of your questions.

[macaddicted]

Yep, that's the one.

 

A few notes:

 

CMYK comes primarily out of the printing world. Take out your magnifying glass and look at a color photo in the newspaper. What you should see, if the pressman was doing their job, is called a rosette. Each of the four colors is in a little flower shape, hopefully with none touching.

 

The important thing in CMYK printing is that the colors don't mix on the page, they mix in your vision (the aforementioned rosette fools you). Actually mixing the inks isn't the same, but the results are really close enough (if I can't be pedantic here, where can I be?).

 

In a perfect world you could mix an equal amount of each of your base colors (CMY) and get black. This isn't a perfect world, which is why we need black.

 

As you can see from the chart linked above mixing in small quantities of the complimentary color is a great way to mute your ink.

 

Also in the post linked to above Linda uses the magenta and cyan as blue and red, which they are in the CMYK system. But she seems to be using the CMY inks to mix in an RYB (artists) palette. But in a CMYK system red, green and blue (which is the RGB on your monitor) are secondary colors:

 

http://blog.worldlabel.com/wp-content/myfiles/2009/08/cmyk.jpg

 

Back in our perfect world you can get a secondary by mixing the two primary colors. Still not a perfect world.

 

The weakness of the CMYK system is its lack of gamut (color space). There are colors that just aren't reproducible in CMYK that can be created through other color systems. This is why you see 6, 8, 10 color inkjet printers. This simple gamut chart gives and image of what I speak:

 

http://synergenstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Gamut-rgb-cmyk.jpg

 

Red and green are particularly susceptible to this color reproduction. If you are mixing having a good red and good green is helpful.

[Ash1]

You might mean this thread:

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/40629-noodlers-cmyk-color-mixes/page-2

 

I think post number 35 on that thread might actually answer a lot of your questions.

 

 

Yep, that's the one.

 

A few notes:

 

CMYK comes primarily out of the printing world. Take out your magnifying glass and look at a color photo in the newspaper. What you should see, if the pressman was doing their job, is called a rosette. Each of the four colors is in a little flower shape, hopefully with none touching.

 

The important thing in CMYK printing is that the colors don't mix on the page, they mix in your vision (the aforementioned rosette fools you). Actually mixing the inks isn't the same, but the results are really close enough (if I can't be pedantic here, where can I be?).

 

In a perfect world you could mix an equal amount of each of your base colors (CMY) and get black. This isn't a perfect world, which is why we need black.

 

As you can see from the chart linked above mixing in small quantities of the complimentary color is a great way to mute your ink.

 

Also in the post linked to above Linda uses the magenta and cyan as blue and red, which they are in the CMYK system. But she seems to be using the CMY inks to mix in an RYB (artists) palette. But in a CMYK system red, green and blue (which is the RGB on your monitor) are secondary colors:

 

http://blog.worldlabel.com/wp-content/myfiles/2009/08/cmyk.jpg

 

Back in our perfect world you can get a secondary by mixing the two primary colors. Still not a perfect world.

 

The weakness of the CMYK system is its lack of gamut (color space). There are colors that just aren't reproducible in CMYK that can be created through other color systems. This is why you see 6, 8, 10 color inkjet printers. This simple gamut chart gives and image of what I speak:

 

http://synergenstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Gamut-rgb-cmyk.jpg

 

Red and green are particularly susceptible to this color reproduction. If you are mixing having a good red and good green is helpful.

 

Hello,

Thanks for link and info; it is very helpful. When I am mixing colors, such as primaries to create secondaries, do I need to use the same proportion, such as 1:1, or could I use 1:2 or 2:3? What would happen if I used different proportions?

I also apologise if I have misunderstood and am being stupid but I still do not understand how to create tertiary colors. If I start with the primaries cyan, magenta and yellow and mix them they make the secondary colors red, blue and green. If I want to create the tertiary colors do I mix the secondaries red, blue and green together or mix the primaries, cyan, magenta and yellow together with the secondaries red, green and blue?

 

Thanks,

Ash

[chewytulip]

Theoretically, secondary colors are like a midpoint between two primary colors. So theoretically, you'd use a 1:1 ratio to mix two primary colors and obtain a secondary color. And again, theoretically, a tertiary color is like a midpoint between a primary color and the neighboring secondary color, so theoretically you'd use a 1:1 ratio to mix a primary color and a neighboring secondary color to obtain a tertiary color.

Theory is good to help wrap your mind around it.

But when you actually mix colors, you'll find certain colors to be much "stronger" than others. Like black, for example - it's generally overpowering when mixed with other colors, so try to use as little an amount as you can measure in your mixes. And yellow is the color that is easiest to accidentally overpower. So you may end up adding much more yellow to your mix than you might expect.

You can mix colors in any ratio you like - but there's no guarantee as to the result.

However, there are some guides out there, like the link I posted above.

To take her example of a recipe for yellow-orange (which is a tertiary color), you'd mix 3 parts yellow to 1 part shah's rose (magenta).

So, you actually only need the primaries to mix a tertiary color (or a secondary color) - you just need to change the ratio. Figure out which primary color your intended tertiary color is closest to, and weight your ratio to mix accordingly.

You may want to look at a color wheel to help you pinpoint which colors are closest to your intended color.

[Ash1]

Theoretically, secondary colors are like a midpoint between two primary colors. So theoretically, you'd use a 1:1 ratio to mix two primary colors and obtain a secondary color. And again, theoretically, a tertiary color is like a midpoint between a primary color and the neighboring secondary color, so theoretically you'd use a 1:1 ratio to mix a primary color and a neighboring secondary color to obtain a tertiary color.

Theory is good to help wrap your mind around it.

But when you actually mix colors, you'll find certain colors to be much "stronger" than others. Like black, for example - it's generally overpowering when mixed with other colors, so try to use as little an amount as you can measure in your mixes. And yellow is the color that is easiest to accidentally overpower. So you may end up adding much more yellow to your mix than you might expect.

You can mix colors in any ratio you like - but there's no guarantee as to the result.

However, there are some guides out there, like the link I posted above.

To take her example of a recipe for yellow-orange (which is a tertiary color), you'd mix 3 parts yellow to 1 part shah's rose (magenta).

So, you actually only need the primaries to mix a tertiary color (or a secondary color) - you just need to change the ratio. Figure out which primary color your intended tertiary color is closest to, and weight your ratio to mix accordingly.

You may want to look at a color wheel to help you pinpoint which colors are closest to your intended color.

 

Hello,

Thanks for the explanation. I guess its good to learn a bit about color theory when mixing inks but it also requires a bit of experimentation when trying to find the right color.

 

Thanks,

Ash

[Nomad]

To elaborate a bit on what chewytulip wrote:

 

The real distinction is between primaries and everything else. Primaries cannot be mixed. Everything else can be.

 

There's nothing mysterious about tertiary and quaternary colors. They are "in-between" colors. So a blue can be shifted by almost infinite gradations toward green or purple. Thus, in addition to blue and green (a secondary), we also have blue-greens and yellow-greens. Quaternaries are in between in-betweens. And so on.

 

In the real world, the tough part is finding pigments (inks) that come as close as possible to being pure primaries (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow). Most real-world pigments will have slight biases (a cyan that is a bit too green or too purplish) that will make mixing from just three primaries impossible. So a blue that is slightly biased toward red might make a good starting point for mixing a purple (with a neutral red or one with a slight bias toward blue) but will be a lousy starting point for mixing a green. This is why despite the theoretical possibility of mixing every color from just three primaries, no artist palette is ever limited to three pigments.

 

In addition, in the real world, pigments also vary in their opacity. Some pigments/dyes are transparent. Others are relatively opaque. In general, you'd want to stick to mixing opaque pigments with opaque ones and transparent ones with transparent ones. Experiment and experience teach you how to do this.

 

Then there are complementaries. These are colors across from each other on the color wheel. Orange and blue, for instance. But not just any orange and blue. They have to be hues that are exactly opposite (complementary) on the color wheel. If we mix complementaries, we should be able to get various shades of the two colors until we eventually get a black. In reality, this process is trickier, again because real-world pigments tend to have biases that make them imperfect complimentaries. Moreover, cost issues factor in. A good clean blue and a good clean orange are likely to be expensive pigments. So if you wanted to mix a particular shade of brown or grey, you'd likely start with some other combination, like say blue and an earth color like umber.

 

Then there is the simple but easily overlooked fact that we never actually see one color in isolation unless we look straight up into a blue sky. In the case of ink, you're always seeing the color against some kind of white, which will subtly shift the perceived color of the ink depending on the thickness of the ink line.

 

These and other factors make color mixing as much an art as a science.

[chewytulip]

Well said, Nomad!

[Sandy1]

Hi,

 

You ratios for blending will depend on the relative dye-load of the specific inks.

 

For example, when I want a Green highlighter ink, I blend Noodler's Firefly (transparent Yellow) with Sheaffer Skrip Blue. If I were to use Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue instead of SSBl, far less PRSsBl would be needed to give the same Value (light - dark.)

 

Oh, please keep good notes - happy accidents are notoriously difficult to replicate.

 

I look forward to seeing the results of your most successful recipes in the Inky Recipes Forum.

 

Bye,

S1

[Ceilidh]

(if I can't be pedantic here, where can I be?).

 

 

 

 

Actually, that was a very informative post!

[Ash1]

Hello,

I would like to thank everyone for their posts. Now I know more about mixing colours and what to expect.

 

Thanks,

Ash

[Sandy1]

Hello,

I would like to thank everyone for their posts. Now I know more about mixing colours and what to expect.

 

Thanks,

Ash

 

Expect the unexpected!

[Mr. Pink]

Remember that when you are mixing colors, you are subtracting.

 

And to be precise, the Primary colors are red, green and blue.

 

Secondary are cyan, magenta, and yellow.

 

If you are familiar with color printing, it's all CMYK. "K" (black) is added because although in theory CMY will produce black, due to the limitations of dyes, it won't.

 

Do all of you mixing with CMYK.

 

And to remember the color wheel, you might commit this to memory even though it's not PC - Bad - Men - Ravage - Young - Girls - Constantly = Blue - Magenta - Red - Yellow - Green - Cyan.