Tools for mixing food colors?
July 13, 2011 5:03 AM Subscribe
Are there any good online tools which give instructions on how to mix basic food colors to get more elaborate ones?
Finally can get married in my state and we've got the wedding planned for September, so I'm in the process of planning out my wedding cake, and hitting a bit of a road block. Some of the colors I'm looking to use are not available and not readily mixable. What I would love, and which I'm almost positive must exist somewhere on the internet, is a tool into which you can input a color and have it tell you "X parts red to Y parts blue" or whatever. Ideally ones which would accept a hex or RGB value and spit out a result.
...failing that, any mix masters out there have thoughts on proportions of different basic colors to mix these specific colors from:
#8E4585
#408DA7
#C5DD76
Colors that are readily available which I'd be using are these.
Finally can get married in my state and we've got the wedding planned for September, so I'm in the process of planning out my wedding cake, and hitting a bit of a road block. Some of the colors I'm looking to use are not available and not readily mixable. What I would love, and which I'm almost positive must exist somewhere on the internet, is a tool into which you can input a color and have it tell you "X parts red to Y parts blue" or whatever. Ideally ones which would accept a hex or RGB value and spit out a result.
...failing that, any mix masters out there have thoughts on proportions of different basic colors to mix these specific colors from:
#8E4585
#408DA7
#C5DD76
Colors that are readily available which I'd be using are these.
This is really hard with pigments. Food colors aren't really accurately labeled, like TWinbrook says. Also, your monitor (probably) isn't calibrated, so even getting the same color on screen on two computers is a challenge. If you want to do this right, I recommend going old school and swatching out a color wheel like this. Recommend using three droppers so you can accurately measure your primary colors and q-tips so you don't have to stop to clean out brushes all the time. Also, if you start with your primaries in the middle and swatch outwards you won't run out of room quite as quickly.
posted by anaelith at 6:27 AM on July 13, 2011
posted by anaelith at 6:27 AM on July 13, 2011
I used to make tie-dye rice for my kids that involved making white rice and then in separate dishes adding different food coloring to create different colors then after a few minutes put all back into one dish. (Very cool looking rice at the end!!)
I was never able to recreate colors from one event to the next. Sometimes reds would come out RED and sometimes more pink. Very difficult to do without trying on the specific food you want to color. I know mashed potato colors differently from rice too btw.
It sounds like what you want is what a paint mixer software does. Is it possible to take a drop of the different food colors you want to use to the paint store as well as the final color and see if they can analyze it to tell you how much of each to use?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:08 AM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
I was never able to recreate colors from one event to the next. Sometimes reds would come out RED and sometimes more pink. Very difficult to do without trying on the specific food you want to color. I know mashed potato colors differently from rice too btw.
It sounds like what you want is what a paint mixer software does. Is it possible to take a drop of the different food colors you want to use to the paint store as well as the final color and see if they can analyze it to tell you how much of each to use?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:08 AM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
Here's a great chart from SugarBelle. It's technically for colors for royal icing, but you can get the basic idea for your cake icing. She uses the same brand you linked to @ NY Cake & Baking.
posted by pupstocks at 7:17 AM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by pupstocks at 7:17 AM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
If you're making icing yourself, I don't think you're not really going to be able to use an exact formula, for the reasons mentioned above. You're going to have have to mix colors the way artists mix paint. You're essentially doing the same thing.
Add colors carefully in small increments until you're satisfied with the results. You going to have to mix batches larger than you need to get the color right and make sure you're not short. Keep adding more to make it darker. Mix in more icing if it gets too dark.
You colors in reverse order:
#C5DD76 pale yellow-green: Yellow plus a little bit of green. Warning - yellow is a weak color and easily over powered by other colors. Add in yellow first and then start mixing in a little green very, very carefully until you get the right shade.
#408DA7 blue-green: Mostly blue, with a smaller amount of green. Combine these till the result is about right, though it will be brighter than you want. Then mix in a tiny amount of red to soften the color and make it duller. (Sounds counter-intuitive, but it works.)
#8E4585 purple: Combining red and blue in approximately equal amounts will give you about what you want, but the resulting color could be a bit on the dull side. (You'll need a lot of both since it's a fairly deep color.)
Pink coloring will probably yield something like a reddish purple or purplish red if you add in a lot of it. So an alternate way to mix this would be to combine a generous amount of pink with a smaller amount of blue. Experiment a bit first before you make a large batch. This might yield better results.
(I've never used pink food coloring before. I'm assuming it's close to magenta.)
posted by nangar at 7:18 AM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
Add colors carefully in small increments until you're satisfied with the results. You going to have to mix batches larger than you need to get the color right and make sure you're not short. Keep adding more to make it darker. Mix in more icing if it gets too dark.
You colors in reverse order:
#C5DD76 pale yellow-green: Yellow plus a little bit of green. Warning - yellow is a weak color and easily over powered by other colors. Add in yellow first and then start mixing in a little green very, very carefully until you get the right shade.
#408DA7 blue-green: Mostly blue, with a smaller amount of green. Combine these till the result is about right, though it will be brighter than you want. Then mix in a tiny amount of red to soften the color and make it duller. (Sounds counter-intuitive, but it works.)
#8E4585 purple: Combining red and blue in approximately equal amounts will give you about what you want, but the resulting color could be a bit on the dull side. (You'll need a lot of both since it's a fairly deep color.)
Pink coloring will probably yield something like a reddish purple or purplish red if you add in a lot of it. So an alternate way to mix this would be to combine a generous amount of pink with a smaller amount of blue. Experiment a bit first before you make a large batch. This might yield better results.
(I've never used pink food coloring before. I'm assuming it's close to magenta.)
posted by nangar at 7:18 AM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
I looked over your list of available colors again.
Use royal or sky blue to mix blue-green, and navy blue to mix purple. If the purple comes out too bright, you can mix in a very small amount green to soften it.
It doesn't really matter which green you use, though it will change the proportions a little. "Leaf" or something similar would work in all the mixtures. (But stay away from "mint.")
(They probably only use a small number of basic pigments, but offer some colors premixed.)
posted by nangar at 10:21 AM on July 13, 2011
Use royal or sky blue to mix blue-green, and navy blue to mix purple. If the purple comes out too bright, you can mix in a very small amount green to soften it.
It doesn't really matter which green you use, though it will change the proportions a little. "Leaf" or something similar would work in all the mixtures. (But stay away from "mint.")
(They probably only use a small number of basic pigments, but offer some colors premixed.)
posted by nangar at 10:21 AM on July 13, 2011
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top: 50C/ 86M/ 17Y/ 2B
middle: 75C/ 32M /26Y/ 1B
bottom: 26C/ 0M / 69Y/ 0B
You will need to scale this somehow and/or round off the percentages but as long as you keep it in proportion, this might work. Also, if this is for frosting, wouldn't you have to take the base color into account, ie white sugar? IANAB (baker)
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:04 AM on July 13, 2011