Chris Nellist wrote:


Depends on what you need. Physiologically a green hue would also be
included. I want to use the hues defined in HTML as 0/255/255, 255/0/255,
and 255/255/0.

I am quite surprised that there aren't more people who buy pots of these
three colours and try their hand at mixing up what they want


Umm, there's a bit more to colour perception than you seem to
acknowledge, Chris. For a start, the HTML "specs" you mention aren't in
any "standardised" colour space - they'll give whatever the display
device - typcially a CRT or LCD screen - happens to give when driven
with (f'r example) "full" Red & Green for the 255/255/0 case, which will
be something pretty yellowish; but will appear quite differently on
different screens - and different again when printed on a colour printer.

Secondly, for paint mixing you're doing "subtractive" mixing, rather
than the additive, and the way particular pigments interact when
subtracring depends (and I'm no colour chemist, not even an armature ;-)
on a lot more than the absorbtion spectrum of "the" pigment (scare
quotes because there's typically more than one pigment involved anyway)
- I'd expect that the grainsize of the pigment, for example, would make
quite a difference in how it interacted with other pigments.

Pragmatically, I'd expect you'd get best results for a given colour
which the existing "mix-when-you-buy" either don't give you or you feel
are overpriced by buying something close, and small pots of the colours
you believe necessary to pull the overall colour in the direction you
want - from the same mfr, natch, to try to get maximum compatibility in
the other components of the paint. But far be it from me to discourage
experimentation!

Stefek