Colour harmonies, wheels and a wet mixer in Paint by Zaweba
Colour schemes from harmonies worked in OKLCh, four colour wheels with gamut masks and a wet mixing palette, all in Paint by Zaweba.
Good colour schemes rarely happen by accident. Painters and designers lean on a few reliable ideas, such as using colours opposite each other on the wheel for punch or neighbouring colours for calm. Paint by Zaweba builds those ideas into its colour tools with harmonies, several colour wheels and a wet mixing palette.
Harmonies
The harmonies tool suggests colours that go with the one you have chosen. It offers complementary, split complementary, analogous, triadic, tetradic, square, monochromatic and shades.
Complementary pairs a colour with its opposite: orange with blue, red with green. It gives maximum contrast and suits posters and sale graphics. Split complementary uses the two colours either side of the opposite, which keeps contrast but is easier to balance. Analogous uses neighbours on the wheel, the calm schemes of sunsets and forests. Triadic, tetradic and square spread three or four colours evenly or in pairs around the wheel for lively, playful palettes. Monochromatic and shades stay within one hue and vary its lightness and saturation, the safest choice for elegant, simple design.
The harmonies are worked out in OKLCh, a colour space built so that equal steps look equal to the eye. That matters because in older models a yellow and a blue of the same numbers can look very different in lightness. Worked in OKLCh, the colours in a harmony have a more even visual weight.
Wheels
The wheels show colour in a circle, with a choice of HSV, HSL, HSY and OKLCh. HSV and HSL are the familiar models in most software. HSY and OKLCh take perceived brightness into account, so moving around the wheel at the same position keeps colours of similar lightness, which painters often prefer.
Gamut masks are a painter's trick for harmony. A mask covers part of the wheel and leaves a shape, such as a triangle, open. You pick colours only from inside the shape, and because the whole palette comes from a limited area, everything in the painting tends to belong together. It is a simple way to give a picture a strong colour mood.
The mixer
The mixer is a wet mixing palette. You lay down colours and blend them, with a wetness setting that controls how freely they run together. It feels much closer to mixing on a real palette than picking from a square, and it encourages the slightly unexpected, in-between colours that make paintings feel alive.
Use it alongside Paint's brushes for digital painting: mix a few related colours on the palette, then pick them up as you paint.
Recent colours
A row of the last 20 colours you used sits close at hand. When you jump between tools or layers, it saves re-picking the colour you used a moment ago.
Thinking about colour in practice
Start with one key colour, often from a brand, a photo or the subject of a painting. Use harmonies to suggest a few companions, then adjust them by eye. Harmony rules are starting points, not laws.
Use contrast deliberately. Let one colour dominate, give a second a supporting role, and save the strongest contrast for the thing you want people to look at.
Mistakes to avoid with colour schemes
Using every colour a harmony suggests at full strength usually looks busy. Mute most of them and keep one bright. With gamut masks, resist picking just outside the shape; the restriction is the point. And for print, check the final palette with the out-of-gamut warning in Picker.
These tools give Paint by Zaweba a thoughtful approach to colour that suits both quick social graphics and slow, careful painting.
