Mixing Recommendations

Get precise 2-paint and 3-paint mixing recipes to achieve your target colour.

Accessing Mixing Results

After scanning a colour or selecting one from a photo, tap the Mixing tab (purple) on the results screen. Mixura calculates combinations of paints that can reproduce your target colour, starting with 2-paint mixes and then searching for 3-paint combinations.

All results — both 2-paint and 3-paint — appear in a single list sorted by Delta E (best match first), so the most accurate recipe is always at the top regardless of how many paints it uses.

3-Paint Mixing

Some colours are difficult to match with just two paints. Mixura's 3-paint mixing algorithm finds optimal combinations of three paints and their proportions to get closer to your target colour.

• Pro users always receive 3-paint results. They load progressively after the 2-paint results appear — look for the "Finding 3-paint mixes..." indicator at the bottom of the list.
• Free users automatically receive up to 2 three-paint mixes when the best 2-paint result has a Delta E above 3.0 (i.e., when no 2-paint mix is a close match).

3-paint mix cards look similar to 2-paint cards but display three paint swatches combined into the result, a 3-segment ratio bar, and a purple "3-paint mix" badge.

Understanding Mix Cards

Each mixing recommendation card shows:

• Rank badge — Position in the results (1, 2, 3...)
• Quality label — "Excellent", "Very Good", etc.
• Star rating — Quick visual quality indicator
• Mix visualisation — Paint swatches (2 or 3) combined into a result swatch
• Ratio bar — Coloured bar showing the proportion of each paint (2 or 3 segments)
• Paint details — Names and percentages for each paint (e.g., "50% Cadmium Yellow + 30% Ultramarine Blue + 20% Burnt Sienna")
• Brand info — Brand and paint line name (for cross-brand mixes, distinct brand names are shown separated by "/")
• Delta E value — The numerical colour difference (e.g., "dE 3.2")

Mix Badges

Cards display contextual badges that tell you about the recipe at a glance:

• "Same line" (green) — All paints are from the same brand and paint line. Best predictability.
• "Cross-line" (amber) — Paints from the same brand but different paint lines (e.g., Golden Heavy Body + Golden Fluid). Viscosity may vary.
• "Cross-brand" (red/orange) — Paints from entirely different brands. Results may differ most from the prediction.
• "3-paint mix" (purple) — A 3-paint recipe (shown alongside one of the above badges).

Reading the Ratio Bar

The ratio bar is a horizontal stacked bar that visually represents the mixing proportions:

• 2-paint mixes: Two segments — the left portion shows Paint 1's colour and the right shows Paint 2's colour, each taking up its percentage of the bar.
• 3-paint mixes: Three segments — one for each paint, displayed left to right in the same order as the listed paints.
• Common ratios include 60/40, 70/30, 50/50, 80/20, and 90/10 for 2-paint mixes. 3-paint mixes can have any combination of proportions (e.g., 45/35/20).

Filter Toggles

Above the results list, you'll find a compact row of filter toggles that control which paints are considered for mixing:

Use Only Paints I Own

If you've marked paints as owned in your collection, you can toggle "Use only paints I own" to filter mixing results to only show combinations you can make right now without buying new paints.

• The toggle shows the count of paints in your inventory
• Only appears if you have owned paints marked
• When enabled, results recalculate using only your owned paints

Cross-Line Mixing

Toggle "Cross-line mixing" to allow paints from different paint lines within the same brand to be mixed together — for example, Golden Heavy Body with Golden Fluid.

• Default is off (same paint line only)
• When enabled, you may see more results, especially if a brand has multiple paint lines
• Cross-line mix cards show an amber "Cross-line" badge and a note: "Same brand, cross-line mix — viscosity may vary"

Cross-Brand Mixing

Toggle "Cross-brand mixing" to allow paints from entirely different brands to be mixed together — for example, Golden with Liquitex.

• Default is off
• Enabling cross-brand mixing automatically enables cross-line mixing as well
• Cross-brand mix cards show a red/orange "Cross-brand" badge and a note: "Cross-brand mix — results may vary from prediction"
• For 3-paint cross-brand mixes, the brand line shows each distinct brand name separated by "/"

Mix Warnings

Some mix recommendations may include orange warning badges:

• "Different opacity may affect result" — One paint is opaque and the other is transparent. The actual result may look different from the predicted colour.

These are informational — the mix will still work, but you should be aware of potential differences in the real-world result.

How the Mixing Algorithm Works

Mixura's mixing engine:

1. Filters paint pairs from the same brand (or across brands/lines, depending on your toggle settings) with similar opacity and sufficient colour difference (Delta E > 5)
2. Tests mixing ratios in 10% increments: 10/90, 20/80, 30/70... 90/10
3. Calculates the mixed colour using linear interpolation in the LAB colour space
4. Compares each mix result to your target using Delta E 2000
5. Returns mixes with Delta E < 5.0, sorted from best to worst

For 3-paint mixing, the algorithm extends this approach by evaluating combinations of three paints simultaneously. It finds the optimal proportions for each trio of paints, testing a wide range of three-way ratios to minimise the Delta E to your target colour. Because of the larger search space, 3-paint results load progressively after 2-paint results.

Saving Mix Recipes

Tap the bookmark icon (purple when saved) on any mix card to save it to your Quick Saves for future reference.

No Mixes Found

If no mixing recommendations appear:

• "No mixes found from your collection" — Try disabling the "Use my collection" filter
• "No mixing recommendations found" — Try the following:
  • Enable cross-line mixing to include paints from other lines within the same brand
  • Enable cross-brand mixing to search across all your selected brands
  • Select more brands in Settings
  • The target colour may be too unusual to achieve with a 2-paint mix — wait for 3-paint results to finish loading, as they can often match colours that 2-paint mixes cannot reach