Free
0 €
- Spectral mixing and recipes
- Values, grids, limited palettes
- Steer to correct the paste
- Works with no account and no card
- Advanced image analyses: a few a day
Mix pigments the way they really mix. Correct the paste without waste.
Mestor works out how your paints actually mix, band by band of light, and tells you how much to add to the paste already on your palette, instead of starting over.
Oil, acrylic and watercolour. It runs on your device: your images stay yours.
- 31
- bands of light for every colour, from violet to red
- ≈ 2
- average ΔE00 on measured oil mixtures the model had never seen (1 ≈ just noticeable)
- 3
- media: oil, acrylic, watercolour
- 0
- images uploaded to a server
The right colour takes too many attempts
At the easel, waste has four faces.
Paint thrown away
Trial and error on the palette until the colour arrives: half of it ends up on the rag.
Muddy greens
Blue and yellow don’t make the green you expect, and a drawing program won’t tell you.
Chalky tints
Lighten with white and the colour dies into a dusty pastel.
The pile that doubles
Correct by eye, add, correct again: you end up with twice the paste, and it still isn’t right.
How it works
Three steps, with your own tubes.
- 1
Your tubes
Choose the paints you actually own, or a limited palette like the Zorn. If your tube is not like the catalogue, calibrate it with a photo.
- 2
The colour you want
From a spot on the reference, a photo of the paste next to the card, or a colour code. You can move its value, chroma and temperature one at a time.
- 3
Mix and correct
A suggested recipe in parts, and if the paste is already on the palette, how much to add to get there with the least paint.
Correct the paste you have, with the least paint
The Steer Matrix starts from the paste already on the palette and looks for the correction that adds as little paint as possible, with a cautious first step.
Your tubes, not the catalogue average
Two tubes of the same pigment can differ. With the Pigment Tuner you spread the pure paint, blending toward white, photograph it next to the card, and Mestor works out your tube’s opacity and hue. No weighing: spread it and take a photo.
From then on, recipes use your tube.
Everything the studio needs
Oil, acrylic, watercolour
Each medium with its own physics. In watercolour, water is part of the recipe and the paper is the light.
Values and grid
The reference in 3, 5 or 9 values on the grey scale, and a grid to transfer the drawing.
Recipes on the reference
Hover over the image: the recipe for that spot. Similar areas share one mix.
Painting plan
Masses, values and mixes in order, for the technique you choose: tonal underpainting, direct flat masses or glazes.
Mix photo
Photograph the paste next to the printed card: the light is neutralised and the colour read.
Easel mode
Big buttons you can press with a knuckle, voice commands, a foot pedal, the screen kept on: at the easel your hands are dirty.
Try it: blue and yellow
On the left, the mix worked out from the physics of pigments; on the right, the average of the colours on screen.
Pricing
Mixing stays free. You only pay for what costs computing.
Pro
€4.99 a month, or €39 a year · VAT included
- Unlimited image analyses
- Full Steer and Pigment Tuner
- Advanced media
- Saved and synced projects
- Painting plan export to PDF
- Full catalogue of brands and pigments
Coming soon. At launch, for the first 500: a one-off €79, for life. Until then, everything that is ready is free.
Questions
Is the colour exact?
No, and it is right to say so: it is the best estimate the physics of pigments allows. Tubes vary from brand to brand, and a photo sees only three channels, so two different pastes can look the same in a photo. That is why there is tube calibration and correction in small steps.
Do I need an account?
No. Mixing, recipes, values and corrections work without signing up.
Do my images go to a server?
No. References and photos are processed on your device and are not uploaded anywhere.
Do I need a spectrophotometer?
No. The calibration card you print at home is enough: its grey removes the colour cast of the light from the photo.
Which colours does it know?
For oil, acrylic and watercolour it starts from catalogues of pigments measured in laboratories and published. Where a pigment is not measured in your medium, it is marked as an estimate and says so.
Why not use an ordinary colour picker?
Because a screen mixes light, while paint absorbs it: blue plus yellow, in RGB, makes a grey. Mestor works out how pigments absorb and scatter light, band by band.
For photos you need the calibration card (A4, printed at 100% on matte paper).
