Tips & Best Practices

Get the most accurate results and make the best use of Mixura's features.

Lighting for Accurate Scans

• Use daylight when possible — North-facing window light or overcast sky provides the most neutral, even illumination
• Avoid mixed lighting — Don't scan under a mix of daylight and warm artificial light, as this creates colour casts
• Be consistent — If using flash, use it for all scans in a session so results are comparable
• Watch for shadows — Your hand or phone can cast shadows on the target. Hold at a slight angle if needed
• Avoid glossy surfaces — Specular highlights (shiny reflections) will read as white, skewing results. Tilt to avoid glare
• Scan matte surfaces — Dried paint swatches give more accurate readings than wet paint (wet paint appears darker)

Choosing the Right Brands

• Match your medium — Select brands that produce the type of paint you use (acrylic, oil, watercolour, or gouache)
• Start with your collection — Choose brands you already own for the most useful "I Own This" results
• Add complementary brands — If your primary brand lacks certain colours, add a brand known for that range (e.g., Daniel Smith for granulating watercolours)
• Quality matches quality — Artist-grade brands (Golden, Michael Harding, Old Holland) have more concentrated pigments and may match differently than student-grade brands

Building Your Paint Inventory

Marking paints as owned unlocks powerful features:

• "I Own This" badges on match results help you quickly identify paints you already have
• Collection-only mixing shows recipes using only your existing paints — no extra purchases needed
• Identify gaps by switching to "Not Owned" filter to see what's missing from your collection

Organising Palettes

• By project — Create a palette for each painting or commission (e.g., "Sunset Landscape April")
• By subject — Build reference palettes for recurring subjects (e.g., "Skin Tones", "Foliage Greens", "Sky Blues")
• By session — When scanning multiple references in one sitting, save them all to a single dated palette
• Export before painting — Generate a PDF of your palette and prop it up beside your easel as a mixing guide

Improving Match Accuracy

• Scan the same area twice — If results seem off, scan again with adjusted lighting. Compare both results.
• Check pigment codes — If a match shows the same pigments as a paint you know, that's a strong indicator of accuracy
• Test on a swatch card — Paint out your top match and compare in person. Screens and physical paint can look different
• Factor in opacity — A transparent paint over a white ground looks different from the same paint over a dark ground. The match is based on mass tone

Mixing Tips

• Always add small to large — Start with the majority colour and gradually add the minority colour
• Mix more than you need — It's very difficult to remix an exact colour. Make extra and save it
• Same brand, same line — Mixura recommends within the same paint line because these paints are designed to work together
• Test the ratio — The mathematical ratio is a starting point. Real pigments interact differently, so adjust as you mix
• Consider drying shift — Acrylics dry slightly darker, oils stay the same, watercolours dry slightly lighter. Account for this when matching

Getting the Best Results from Photos

• Use high-quality images — Higher resolution photos allow for more precise colour picking
• Beware of screen calibration — Colours on your screen may differ from reality. For critical work, scan physical samples
• Zoom in — When picking from a complex image, zoom to the area of interest to avoid accidentally sampling adjacent colours
• Use dominant extraction wisely — The algorithm finds the most prominent colours, which may not be the ones you want. Manually pick specific areas for precise needs