On the painter's wheel red is one of the three corners, so it is normally bought as a tube rather than mixed. Magenta, a pinkish purple-red, gets closer than any other single partner in our paint model.
The table below leaves our red tube out and shows how close the rest get.
CSS red is the full red lamp of a screen. It is brighter than any paint, so the paint mixes are compared with it and fall short.
In paint
Magenta with orange, or magenta with yellow, come closest in our paint model. Both mixes are duller than a tube red and lean a little toward orange.
Closest two-paint mixes
- += 55% Orange + 45% Magenta #E35135 · ΔE 6.7 from red
- += 45% Yellow + 55% Magenta #E45644 · ΔE 8.6 from red
- += 50% Orange + 50% Violet #A66937 · ΔE 21.1 from red
- += 35% Yellow + 65% Violet #91664A · ΔE 23.2 from red
- += 90% Orange + 10% White #F28D1F · ΔE 25.1 from red
Equal parts
- += Magenta + Yellow #EA6142 · ΔE 9.0 from red
- += Magenta + Orange #DE4938 · ΔE 7.4 from red
ΔE is the CIEDE2000 color difference between the mix and red. Zero means the same color; the smaller the number, the closer the mix.
In light
A screen makes red with the red lamp alone. It cannot be made from green and blue light.
The three lamps at these levels give #FF0000. Levels are the amount of light each lamp gives out, which is not the same scale as the 0–255 numbers in a color code; the method page shows the conversion.
Wheel pairings
Green sits opposite red on the painter's wheel, which is where the classroom pairing of red and green comes from.
| Rule | Painter's wheel | OKLCH wheel |
|---|---|---|
| Complementary +180° | #00FF00 2.91:1 | #009CB2 1.22:1 |
| Analogous -30° +30° | #FF00AA 1.11:1#FF4000 1.14:1 | #F50084 1.01:1#D06800 1.08:1 |
| Triadic +120° +240° | #FFFF00 3.72:1#0000FF 2.15:1 | #00A836 1.27:1#5577FF 1.04:1 |
| Split-complementary +150° +210° | #80FF00 3.09:1#00FFFF 3.19:1 | #00A28A 1.24:1#0092E2 1.18:1 |
Red mixed with each paint
Start from red (#FF0000) and add one of our ten stand-in paints. Shares are by amount, in our paint model.
| Add | 75% red + 25% | 50% red + 50% | 25% red + 75% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | #F50A07 | #E21118 | #D41A28 |
| Yellow | #FF1506 | #FF3C16 | #FF7823 |
| Blue | #A3241B | #5D2228 | #3C2645 |
| Orange | #FC0D05 | #FA2A13 | #F9561E |
| Green | #A1291C | #6A2E29 | #594738 |
| Violet | #D61712 | #9C1B23 | #6D1F40 |
| Magenta | #F10D0A | #DA1322 | #C7164B |
| Cyan | #803021 | #5D3436 | #5A516D |
| White | #FF1916 | #FF4147 | #FF7F96 |
| Black | #C51C15 | #791D1F | #39181F |
Named reds in CSS
| CSS name | Swatch | Code | ΔE from this page's red |
|---|---|---|---|
| red | #FF0000 | 0.0 | |
| crimson | #DC143C | 13.8 | |
| firebrick | #B22222 | 16.3 |
Paint results come from a pigment model and our ten stand-in paints, not from real tubes, which vary by brand and pigment. Try any pair in the color mixer, or read how each swatch is worked out.