Mixing Examples in Photoshop
Opaque (no mixing)
Mixing by averaging
(using transparency
settings)
Combination
opaque and
transparent
Subtractive mixing
(multiply)
“felt tip pens” in
Painter
Additive mixing
(screen)
Opacity of 50% takes half of color and half of the color already on page and averages them.
You can get lighter or darker—doesn’t tend toward white or black.
Multiple, exclusion, etc all ways of mixing (or compositing as its called in the computer world) colors.
All designed by programmers, none necessarily related to any real-world phenomenon like paints or paints.
Natural media programs do better simulate real world mixing—Painter’s magic markers, for instance, and you get to black pretty quickly.
