5 ms·

Practical Pigment Mixing for Digital Painting

60 points by rck 5y ago

senectus1 5y ago
thats quite interesting. Also from that same site : https://ebsynth.com/ https://ebsynth.com/ Making a digital paining a moving object using video frames... damned clever. I feel inspired to draw/paint again just to play with it.
NylaTheWolf 5y ago
You're an actual saint! Thank you so much!!!
r_hoods_ghost 5y ago
Oh that's lovely! I hope this gets integrated into more software soon, though I'm definitely going to check out Rebelle [1] that has it now. It'd be nice to be able to do realistic watercolors without having to actually break out the watercolors! [1]https://www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle/about https://www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle/about
cosmotic 5y ago
Without downloading and trying it out myself, I'm skeptical of the claim that Corel Painter doesn't mix colors correctly; this is one of their main selling points. I suspect they just left it in RGB mode instead of switching to CYMK mode. Can anyone confirm?
- operatingthetan 5y ago
  I just tested Corel Painter by mixing blue and yellow and it does not. You end up with a sort of grey color, not green. I do not see a CMYK option in the preferences either.
  - cosmotic 5y ago
    Confirmed, no CYMK mode in painter. I'm extremely surprised; it's like the product's main selling point: reflecting real world media.
pabs3 5y ago
Note: requires a separate (paid?) license to use commercially
- chii 5y ago
  if there's no patents (which i dont know if true or not), you can read the paper, and reimplement it without looking at the source (provided you have the skills i suppose...). But the effort probably isn't worth the cost of a license imho.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Yeah, but I was referring to the software that implements this. Hopefully Krita/MyPaint/GIMP/etc do the reimplementation that you suggested.
friedturkey 5y ago
I hope this gets brought to Procreate. I’ve always had trouble handling color when painting digitally, despite immediately grasping it when painting with oils. I knew there was something off about blending but this was my first time actually seeing a side by side—it finally clicked why it’s wrong (and it reminds me of another recent HN post about CSS gradients and avoid the gray zone).
rikroots 5y ago
I think the talk video (last on the linked page) does a really good job of explaining the problems surrounding natural vs digital (RGB) pigments mixing, and how the Mixbox folks overcame them to create good-looking outcomes.
fire 5y ago
Nice! Artrage[1] has had this functionality since 2013(!), and I'm honestly surprised it has taken so long for this to show up in ( literally any ) other software; 1: https://www.artrage.com/ https://www.artrage.com/
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  Came here to say the same! I remember vividly being impressed by its paint simulation almost a decade ago, and watercolor mixing. The wheel keeps spinning. There has been a ton of uptake for alternative color spaces in design tools recently, especially to generate nicer gradients. It’s surprising that art software would be the slowest to evolve.

60 points by rck 5y ago

thats quite interesting. Also from that same site : https://ebsynth.com/ https://ebsynth.com/ Making a digital paining a moving object using video frames... damned clever. I feel inspired to draw/paint again just to play with it.

NylaTheWolf 5y ago

You're an actual saint! Thank you so much!!!

r_hoods_ghost 5y ago

Oh that's lovely! I hope this gets integrated into more software soon, though I'm definitely going to check out Rebelle [1] that has it now. It'd be nice to be able to do realistic watercolors without having to actually break out the watercolors! [1]https://www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle/about https://www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle/about

cosmotic 5y ago

Without downloading and trying it out myself, I'm skeptical of the claim that Corel Painter doesn't mix colors correctly; this is one of their main selling points. I suspect they just left it in RGB mode instead of switching to CYMK mode. Can anyone confirm?

operatingthetan 5y ago
I just tested Corel Painter by mixing blue and yellow and it does not. You end up with a sort of grey color, not green. I do not see a CMYK option in the preferences either.
- cosmotic 5y ago
  Confirmed, no CYMK mode in painter. I'm extremely surprised; it's like the product's main selling point: reflecting real world media.

pabs3 5y ago

Note: requires a separate (paid?) license to use commercially

chii 5y ago
if there's no patents (which i dont know if true or not), you can read the paper, and reimplement it without looking at the source (provided you have the skills i suppose...). But the effort probably isn't worth the cost of a license imho.
- pabs3 5y ago
  Yeah, but I was referring to the software that implements this. Hopefully Krita/MyPaint/GIMP/etc do the reimplementation that you suggested.

friedturkey 5y ago

I hope this gets brought to Procreate. I’ve always had trouble handling color when painting digitally, despite immediately grasping it when painting with oils. I knew there was something off about blending but this was my first time actually seeing a side by side—it finally clicked why it’s wrong (and it reminds me of another recent HN post about CSS gradients and avoid the gray zone).

rikroots 5y ago

I think the talk video (last on the linked page) does a really good job of explaining the problems surrounding natural vs digital (RGB) pigments mixing, and how the Mixbox folks overcame them to create good-looking outcomes.

fire 5y ago

Nice! Artrage[1] has had this functionality since 2013(!), and I'm honestly surprised it has taken so long for this to show up in ( literally any ) other software; 1: https://www.artrage.com/ https://www.artrage.com/

ricardobeat 5y ago
Came here to say the same! I remember vividly being impressed by its paint simulation almost a decade ago, and watercolor mixing. The wheel keeps spinning. There has been a ton of uptake for alternative color spaces in design tools recently, especially to generate nicer gradients. It’s surprising that art software would be the slowest to evolve.