Subtractive Color Mixture Computation

Abstract: Modeling subtractive color mixture (e.g., the way that paints mix) is difficult when working with colors described only by three-dimensional color space values, such as RGB. Although RGB values are sufficient to describe a specific color sensation, they do not contain enough information to predict the RGB color that would result from a subtractive mixture of two specified RGB colors. Methods do exist for accurately modeling subtractive mixture, such as the Kubelka-Munk equations, but require extensive spectrophotometric measurements of the mixed components, making them unsuitable for many computer graphics applications. This paper presents a strategy for modeling subtractive color mixture given only the RGB information of the colors being mixed, written for a general audience. The RGB colors are first transformed to generic, representative spectral distributions, and then this spectral information is used to perform the subtractive mixture, using the weighted arithmetic-geometric mean. This strategy provides reasonable, representative subtractive mixture colors with only modest computational effort and no experimental measurements. As such, it provides a useful way to model subtractive color mixture in computer graphics applications.