The RYB colour model deals with a subtractive method of colour mixing, commonly used in traditional art and painting where opaque pigments are in use.
- The RYB colour model deals with a subtractive method of colour mixing, commonly used in art and painting whenever opaque paints or pigments are being used.
- The primary colours in the RYB colour model are red, yellow, and blue.
- The RYB colour model allows the three primary pigments to be used to create a wide range of other colours and variations.
- Mixing the primary colours in pairs and in the correct proportions produces the following colours:
- Red and yellow pigments results in orange.
- Yellow and blue pigments create green.
- Blue and red pigments create purple.
- These overlapping pairs of primary colours produce secondary colours, and all three overlapping create darker and more complex hues.
- When all three primary pigments are mixed together, they create a muddy, dark hue.
- While historically significant, the RYB colour model has been largely replaced by other colour models, such as RGB and CMYK, in modern digital design and printing.
- RYB is incompatible with contemporary digital technologies.
- Many commercial and industrial paint shops have adopted computer-based systems that rely on tinting or colour-matching machines that can accurately reproduce wide ranges of specified paint colours that exactly match colour swatches or colours identified using RGB, CMYK, LAB or Pantone colour values.
- One such system is ETint, a proprietary brand owned by Sherwin-Williams Company. They use their own colour models that mix as many as a dozen base colours.
Related diagrams
Each diagram below can be viewed on its own page with a full explanation.
