Eli5: Why is it easier to darken white paint than it is to lighten dark paint?

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I remember in elementary school that I was mixing paints and to make grey, and I found that a small quantity of black darkens white super easily whereas even a 50-50 split of black and white leaves an almost black color. Is black paint more potent? Is there some kind of complicated color theory?

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8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If white is put on a completely dry dark surface, or dark on a completely dry white surface, the difference between the two will be none.

Now if they are both liquid, I assume it goes like this:

White is absolutely clean/nothing/0 color

Dark color is something that has already been added to white.

So adding dark to clean white (imagin white is the ‘nothing’ point) just becomes dark again

While if you add white to black, now you start taking an average of the Dark (White+Dark) and the White your’e adding. And since the dark will never completely disappear from the average equation, it will never become perfect white, whereas white will become dark as it’s like the 0/nothing point.

Basically

Dark->White = (Dark + White)/Total volume = Will never be white completely

White->Dark = (0 + Dark)/Total volume = Can become dark completely since white is the the 0/no color/nothing/starting point

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