Free Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet
A free paint recipe sheet from a photo. Add your reference and get its main colours, each with a mixing recipe in parts from one set of paints, how close the mix comes, and a plain mark on any colour those paints cannot reach. Print it as one page. Your picture never leaves your device. Exports PDF. No sign-up.
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The whole picture.Six to twelve main colours and their accents, found and mixed in one go.
One set of paints.Every recipe comes from the same tubes: yours, or a limited palette.
Out of reach, marked.A colour your paints cannot mix is marked, with the one tube that would reach it.
Never uploaded.The picture is read and the paint is mixed in your browser.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Runs in your browser: your image never leaves your device
How do I mix the colours in a reference photo?
To mix the colours in a reference photo, find its few main colours first, not every colour. For each, start with the nearest paint, then adjust with a little of one or two others: white or a dark for value, a neighbouring colour for hue. This page finds them and works out a starting recipe for each from your paints.
How to use the Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet
The tool takes 6 steps, all on your device.
Add your reference picture.
Choose the paints to mix from: your own, a limited palette, or the whole library.
Choose how many main colours to find, and whether to add accents.
Click the picture to add any colour the sheet missed.
Read each recipe, how close it comes, and the tubes for the whole picture.
Press Save the sheet for a PDF, or Copy as text.
What the Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet does
The Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet gives recipes in parts, says how close each comes, and lists the tubes the picture needs on one printed page.
Recipes in parts
Whole parts, the largest first, as you would mix them. One of our color tools for artists.
How close each comes
The mix beside the picture's colour, with the difference as a number and a word.
How much of each
Each colour's share of the picture, and where it was found.
Tubes for the picture
The fewest tubes that still make the picture, and roughly how much of each.
Your own picks
Click the picture, or type a colour code, to add a colour to the sheet.
One printed page
A4 or Letter, with the picture numbered and every recipe beside its swatches.
How it compares with other recipe tools
A recipe sheet from a whole picture is not ours alone. On 7 October 2026 we gave the same still life to Color2OilPaint's converter, which makes one, and opened the demo of PaletteMix, which mixes one tapped colour at a time.
| Feature | This page | Color2OilPaint | PaletteMix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recipes for a picture's main colours in one go | Yes | Yes | One colour a tap |
| Says how close each mix comes | Yes | Not seen | Yes |
| Marks what the paints cannot reach, and the tube that would | Yes | Not seen | Not seen |
| Each colour's share of the picture | Yes | Not seen | Not seen |
| One list of tubes for the whole sheet | Yes | Not seen | Not seen |
| Paints by brand | No | Named oil colours | 3,376, it says |
| A file to print | PDF or image | PNG of a recipe |
Color2OilPaint's sheet came first and is a good one; with its own choice of paints it used fourteen different tubes for twelve colours, where this page keeps to one set, cuts it to the fewest tubes and adds them up. PaletteMix knows real tubes by brand and warns about strong pigments, which this page's 22 generic paints cannot do. Not seen means we did not find it on the page that day.
For painters working from a reference
Oil and acrylic painters, limited-palette painters and teachers mix from a reference with the sheet.
Oil and acrylic painters
Mix the main piles before the first stroke, from the tubes on the table.
Limited-palette painters
See before you start which colours in the picture your palette cannot reach.
Teachers
Hand a class one sheet for the day's reference and one palette.
A sheet, not a single colour
How the colours are found
How a recipe is worked out
Paint does not mix the way light does: blue and yellow light make white, blue and yellow paint make green. The page uses a Kubelka-Munk model of how pigments absorb and scatter light to predict the colour of a mix. For every colour on the sheet it tries each paint alone, every pair, and every three that include white or black, then tunes the proportions and rounds them to whole parts, twelve at most.
The best mix is shown beside the picture's colour with its difference, measured by CIEDE2000, the usual measure of how different two colours look. Under 1 is called very close, under 2 close, under 4 noticeably different. At 4 and over the colour is marked out of reach of these paints, and the page names the one tube from the library that would bring it closest.
One set of paints, and the tubes it takes
What a recipe is worth
A recipe is a place to start. The paints here are generic: each is one colour taken to stand for a pigment, mixed by a model. A real tube of the same name differs by maker, and tinting strength differs most of all, so a part of phthalo blue goes much further than a part of ochre. A photograph's colours depend on the camera and the screen, and its deepest shadows are darker than any tube of black, so very dark colours are often marked out of reach. Mix the recipe, compare it with the reference, and correct by eye. Acrylics dry darker; in watercolour the white in a recipe stands for water and paper.
Tips from a working artist
From Sujith Puthran, artist and founder: what I actually do at the easel.
I mix the largest share first and make plenty of it. Running out of the main colour halfway is the surest way to lose a painting's unity.
When a colour is marked out of reach I ask whether the painting needs it exactly. Often a greyer version reads true beside its neighbours.
Why your picture stays on your device
The Recipe Sheet is a program your browser downloads and runs by itself. When you choose a picture, the browser reads it from your files and does the work on your own phone or computer; no copy is sent to this site or to anyone else, and what you export is saved straight from the browser. That is why there is nothing to upload and nothing to sign up for. The privacy page says what the site does collect.
Questions about the Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet
The 7 questions below cover matches from a few paints, media, swatch differences and sheet size, then privacy and your own paints.
Mixing from a photo
Can I match any colour with a few paints?
No, you cannot match any colour with a few paints. A set of paints reaches only the colours between them, and a limited palette cannot make a strong green or violet. The sheet marks the colours a set cannot reach and names the tube that would.
Do the recipes work for acrylic, oil and watercolour?
Yes, partly: the recipes work as a start for oil and acrylic, which mix alike. For watercolour, read white as more water and bare paper, and expect to adjust more.
Why does my mix look different from the swatch?
Your mix looks different from the swatch because the paints are generic and your tubes are a maker's own; strong pigments such as phthalo blue need far less than a part. Add them a touch at a time and correct by eye.
How many colours should a sheet have?
A sheet should have eight colours as a good start. Six gives the big masses of a simple picture; twelve suits a busy one.
The page
Does the Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet upload my photo?
No, the Photo to Paint Recipe Sheet does not upload your photo.
How do I use my own paints?
Tick the tubes you own in the paint mixing simulator on this site. They are kept in your browser and appear here as My paints.
Is the paint recipe sheet free?
Yes, the paint recipe sheet is free. There is no account and no watermark on the PDF.
The reference's main colours, each with a recipe from your paints, on one page.
Free · No sign-up · Runs in your browser