Dye mixing.

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Nashua, NH, USA.
Rockler is having a sale on Trans Tint Dye.
I can squeeze buying three into my budget, but not much more, so I'd like to just get primary colors and mix my own secondary colors.

I'll be using them on wood and in casting resin.

I have looked at a number of websites that talk about color mixing and there seems to be disagreement.

some say that the the primary colors for mixing dyes are Red, Yellow & Blue (subtractive). Others say that because dyes are transparent they should be treated more like light, so the primary colors are Red, Blue & Green (additive).

What is the consensus among people here who have actually mixed transparent dyes for wood and PR?
 
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alphageek

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Well... My 2cents - ok 1.5 since I havn't actually mixed these dyes.

With my photo (grew up around a dark room) and computer printing experience - the biggest question/flaw that I see above is I cant see how well red, yellow and blue would really work for subtractive. The real colors are yellow, cyan and magenta.

Now, given that - additive (RGB) is usually used in lighting, and subtractive with dyes, inks, pigments so subtractive makes sense, but i don't know if (BRY) is a good substitute for (CMY)?
 

karlkuehn

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Transtint primaries are basically red blue and yellow. I buy the green because I use a lot of it, but I've used yellow and blue mixed as well. There are certain shades of secondaries that you're going to have trouble getting to, but your best bet is yellow red blue if you're limited to 3 colors. Black is a nice to have to take them darker, too.

I've never used trans tint in PR, not sure how well that's going to work. I use transparent pigments from U.S. Composites for PR.

Hope that helps.
 

BullDurham

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Chesterfield, Va., USA.
Well, for me I would have to get the Yellow, Cyan and Magenta. But I would also like to have a Black and a White. The basic colors can get just about any other color. you just need the Black to get darker and dirtier the White to get to a opaque color. I was a color matcher before I retired.
 
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