How this course works
Six short lessons, one mixing bench to play with, and a few exercises for the studio. You don’t need theory books; you need five inks, a scale and the habit of writing things down.
You need: yellow, red, blue, black and white ink of one type (all plastisol, or all water-based); optional magenta and cyan for cleaner secondaries. A kitchen scale that reads to 0.1 g, cups and spatulas, some scrap of the material you print on, and a notebook.
The bench below is a simulation on your screen: seven typical inks mixed by a small physical model. It teaches direction and proportion. It can’t predict your brand of ink, so treat every result as a hypothesis to test on the press.
Lesson 1: three inks, nearly every colour
Inks are subtractive: each pigment absorbs part of the light and reflects the rest. Mixing two inks means more light is absorbed, so mixes are always a little darker and duller than the inks they came from. That is the first rule of this whole course.
With a yellow, a red and a blue you can reach most hues. Printers also keep a magenta (a bluish red) and a cyan (a greenish blue) because they make the cleanest secondaries. Try it: slide two inks up on the bench and read the colour name and hex.
Mixing bench
Lesson 2: secondaries and in-betweens
Mix two neighbours and you get the colour between them. Start at 1:1, then move in small steps.
| Mix | You get | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow + blue | Green | A greenish blue (cyan) gives a clean green; a reddish blue gives a duller, darker one |
| Yellow + red | Orange | More yellow: yellow-orange. More red: red-orange |
| Red + blue | Purple / violet | A bluish red (magenta) gives a clean violet; an orange-leaning red gives a dull brownish purple |
| Yellow + green | Yellow-green (lime) | A little green goes a long way |
| Blue + green | Teal / blue-green | Add white for a sea colour |
| Red + purple | Crimson / red-violet | Magenta as the red keeps it clean |
| Blue + purple | Violet |
Strong versus weak inks. Blue and black are much stronger than yellow. Add the strong ink to the weak one in tiny amounts, never the other way round, or you will throw away half a cup of yellow to fix one drop of blue.
Lesson 3: lighter and darker
- Lighter (a tint): add white. An opaque white also makes the ink cover better, which is useful on dark material. To lighten without covering, on white paper or a light shirt, use a transparent base or extender from your ink supplier instead; the material shows through and the colour stays clear.
- Darker (a shade): add a small amount of black, in tiny steps. Black also dulls the colour, so for a richer dark, try a little of the darker neighbour instead (a dark blue into a blue, a deep red into a red).
- Pastel: a lot of white and a very little colour. Weigh it; you can’t judge it by eye.
Lesson 4: why mixes turn muddy
Some colours neutralise each other. On the colour wheel they sit opposite each other: red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. Mix such complementary colours and part of their brightness disappears. The result turns browner, greyer or simply duller.
That can be exactly what you want. A bright orange, for example, can be calmed down with a small touch of blue. But it can also happen by accident. If a trace of blue is still on your spatula or in your mixing cup, a clear orange can suddenly turn surprisingly dull.
Try it yourself on the mixing bench: mix red with cyan, or use the ‘red + yellow + blue’ preset. Add small amounts each time and watch how quickly the colour turns more neutral.
Want to dull a colour without making it darker straight away? Add a small amount of its complementary colour instead of black. Black mostly makes a colour darker; a complement mostly takes the brightness out.
Mix several primaries together and you end up with a dark, usually brownish or greyish neutral. Do you really need black? Then use black ink. It gives a cleaner and, above all, more predictable result.
Lesson 5: a method you can repeat
- Weigh, don’t scoop. Record grams, not spoonfuls. Weight is the only measure you can repeat next week.
- Mix more than you need. Running out mid-job means remixing, and a remix rarely matches. Keep a small labelled sample of every mix.
- Start with the lighter or weaker ink and add the stronger one gradually, noting each step.
- Print a draw-down on the actual material. A colour in the cup is not a colour on the shirt or paper, and some inks change a little as they dry or cure. Judge it in daylight and in your shop light.
- Write it down: date, ink type and brand, recipe in grams, material, mesh count. To scale a recipe up, keep the ratios.
Lesson 6: matching a target colour
When a client sends a colour, start from the closest ink you already have, not from white. Decide which way you need to move (lighter, darker, warmer, cooler, duller) and change one thing at a time in small steps. Keep the recipe from the last step that was close.
The challenge on the bench gives you a random target made from two or three inks. Match it, then press “Show one recipe” to compare. Try to reach a match above 90% with as few inks as possible: fewer inks means fewer mistakes.
Exercises for the studio
- Print the three secondaries (green, orange, purple) at 1:1, 2:1 and 1:2 side by side. Label them with the recipe.
- Make five tints of one blue: 1 part blue to 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 parts of white (or transparent base). Print them as a step scale.
- Make a neutral grey from two complements only. Then make one from black and white and compare.
- Match three colours from magazines or fabric. Record every step, including the failures.
Free download: the mixing log
One printable A4 page: a recipe log for ten colours (inks, grams, a draw-down box) with the five rules underneath as a reference. Print it and keep it at the mixing table.
Where PrintFilmReady fits
Every mixed colour in your artwork is one ink, one screen. PrintFilmReady separates your image into spot inks; the colour you set for an ink in the editor (hex or CMYK) is only for the on-screen preview and the label on the film. The films themselves are always black. The fewer distinct mixes your design needs, the fewer screens, and the fewer mixes to keep consistent across a run. Once you know your recipes, put them in the ink names, for example “Sky 3 blue : 1 white”, and the recipe travels with the film.
Want to layer transparent inks to get extra colours from fewer screens? See the guide on transparent inks and overprints.
Common questions
What do yellow and blue make?
Green. How bright it is depends on the blue: a greenish blue (cyan) with yellow gives a clean, bright green, while a reddish blue gives a duller, darker one.
What do blue and red make?
Purple or violet. A bluish red (magenta) gives a clean violet. A warm, orange-leaning red gives a dull, brownish purple, because part of it is yellow.
What do yellow and green make?
Yellow-green, also called lime. Add the green a little at a time: it is stronger than the yellow.
Why does my mix look muddy?
Usually complements met: red and green, blue and orange or yellow and purple cancel each other out to brown or grey. Also check for leftover ink on tools and cups.
Can I make black by mixing?
Mixing all the primaries gives a dark, usually brownish neutral. A black ink is cleaner and more consistent.
Is the mixing bench accurate?
It follows the direction and proportions of real mixing, but it cannot know your brand, pigment or ink type. Always print a draw-down.
From mixed colours to films
Set each ink in the editor, name it with its recipe, and download one film per screen. Free while in beta.
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