Obtaining pigment colors

[schreiber]

I realize that mixing pigments to obtain a certain color and mixing light colors to do the same thing are two different things entirely.

But I wonder: Is there a way to convert RGB, HSL, CYMK, etc. values to a pigment recipe?

This is for dying resin; I have a particular color I want to create and I know its values in a graphics program but have no idea how to combine pigments to achieve the same color.

Or are the color values in a graphics program actually pigment colors, meant for telling the printer how to mix the inks? Isn't CYMK exactly that?

 

[dbledsoe]

Speaking as a former printer - CMYK and PMS (Pantone Matching System, not the other) are both recipe systems for matching colors. The trick is to have the base colors to match. The closest thing readily available may be tint colors from a paint store. Otherwise, it's pretty much guesswork. Brooks803 seems to have it figured out. Maybe he can help. So far I have found very few colors available for the PR resin, but I have not looked very far.

 

[schreiber]

Thanks! That helped a lot.

I wondered about Pantone. I'll ask my son; he's a graphic artist.

Paint store pigments. I suppose they come in both dry and liquid?

 

[Ed McDonnell]

If you search color mixing on the internet you can find a lot of information that will get you started. Making an exact match to a particular color will take some experimentation with whatever resin you are using.

Here's a little tool that is fun to play with to help you understand how colors interact:

Online Color Mixing Palette for Painters

Probably a lot more useful if you are using PR resin are the sampler packs (at the bottom of each section) of opaque and transparent pigments for PR resin at US Composites:

Colored Pigments

When mixing colors, a little bit goes a long way when adding one color to another.

Ed

 

[PTsideshow]

Thanks! That helped a lot.

I wondered about Pantone. I'll ask my son; he's a graphic artist.

Paint store pigments. I suppose they come in both dry and liquid?

Most are liquid and not Pantone matches, problem with dry pigments they can be formulated for water or oil solvents and may not mix well with the resins. This is due to additives added to them for flowing,leveling,wetting yada,yada etc. Different additives for different solvents. If you are going to mix a very specific color best bet is to contact the manufacture of the resin and find out what they suggest to use. It will save you lots of time, money and frustration, not to mention resin that may not cure.
The tinting colors are generally the basic red, blue, yellow then the green, brown, white, black paste. And amber in transparent dyes, the transpert dyes are thin liquids the solid colors are past alot of times as some form of titanium dioxide is used as the opaquing agent.
The other makers for PR and alumanite have their own colors generally not much different some have a brown. Since some colors are harder to get correct with out a good starting palette. The cost of a pantone system is out of this world! The books with the color swatches cost an arm and leg. It works for the corporate world so all the adverts and signage are the same looking, but for the hobbyist small pen maker It wouldn't be worth it.
Ask your son if he has an artist color wheel that is used for mixing oil paints. You can check out the color matching and mixing stuff at Dick Blick's web site
:clown:

 

[schreiber]

Very educational! Thanks, y'all. I had no idea where to start.