Have you ever wondered how house paint colours get produced? Firstly, you must determine the colour you would like by selecting from paint chips or having a spectrophotometer scan an existing paint sample. Then a code for that specific hue is entered into a computerized paint colour machine. These gadgets typically contain 12-16 different paint cylinders that add precise amounts of pigment through a syringe-like nozzle to a base of white paint. Each of these cylinders is re-filled regularly. Depending on the demand, some pigment cylinders get topped up daily. The 12 core colours found within the machine can create upwards of 16,000 distinct house paint colours.
Here are the 12 core colours that my local DIY store has in their mixer (grouped by colour families):
1. Titanium white
2. Lamp black
3. Yellow iron oxide
4. Medium yellow
5. Permanent Yellow
6. High hide yellow
7. Permanent red
8. Red iron oxide
9. High hide red
10. Phthalo blue
11. Phthalo green
12. Raw Umber
Of the three primary colours, it is interesting to note that there is one blue, three reds and four yellows. This imbalance is likely due to the popularity of lighter coloured house paints.