How does paint and dyes have color?Basically what produces a color in a dye or a paint?
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If my knowledge is correct, paint is mixed with metal salts to create a pigment: the chemical that gives paint its color. An example would be iron oxide, which can make paint yellow, red, orange, or brown, depending on concentration (this is why metal turns these colors when it rusts).
Other types of metal compounds such as titanium dioxide and chromium oxide can create other colors such as white and green. Black, however, is made with carbon.
I work for a company that makes paint. There’s 3 basic components to paint. You’re asking about the pigment. Pigment comes in 2 basic types organic and inorganic. Organics can be various hydrocarbons in modern days but originally were from natural things like crushed flowers- ochre, violet stuff like that. Inorganic examples are titanium dioxide (white) or crushed carbon (black).
In automotive paint you get another level added, metals and mica. These provide the travel you see that a color shifts from one angle to another. Metal is what it sounds like- flakes of different metals like aluminum that suspend in the paint. Mica is more of a colored powder that does the same. They can give you that flash of another color when the light hits it.
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