list of topics |  forum top |  home page |  polls |  posting hints |  contact admin
how to tie dye|  hand dyeing FAQs|  dyeing Q&A blog|  mailing lists and forums|  about this site
Home » forums » Procion MX dyes and other fiber reactive dyes

Olli's Dye Mixer Applet has moved

I was alarmed last night to find every address I had for Olli Niemitalo's Dye Mixer Applet yielded a "404 Not Found". I fired off a message to him right away, and am very happy to already have his response with the new site:

http://iki.fi/o/dye/dyemixer/

It's such a neat way to think about different ways to mix color, although for some reason the results for blue MX-7RX don't quite work. (Very few of us have that particular rare and expensive dye, however; it costs about $100 a pound to order it from Germany or England.)

This is a permanent address which automatically redirects you to wherever Olli is keeping the dye mixer applet now.

By pburch at 2006-08-10 06:10 | Procion MX dyes and other fiber reactive dyes | login or register to post comments | previous forum topic | next forum topic

Wonderful applet ... can someone give a brief tutorial?

Thank you for finding that again, I use it from time to time, though I am only skimming the surface as far as its usefulness. Would someone be willing to provide a brief tutorial? Specifically, I am not sure what the number designated as the "Mix Amount" means. I generally just slide it to what visually looks like what I want (or have) but what does that number refer to? Also, what do those choices under "Canvas" refer to?

By Tie Dye Diva at Sat, 2006-08-12 18:56 | login or register to post comments

How to use the Dye Mixer Applet

Olli Niemitalo's Dye Mixer Applet is a handy way to play with color mentally, I think. Though nothing can substitute for doing some actual tests, it's very quick and easy to use the applet to get some ideas.

The "Mix Amount" is just a general indication. How much dye do you have to use to equal "1" or "2" on the slider bars? Unfortunately, you have to determine this for yourself, by looking at your own test swatches, if you have any yet, and estimating which concentration yielded a similar brightness to "1" or whatever on the slider bar, for a given dye. More unfortunately, you have to do this individually for each different dye. So, it's a lot of trouble to use the Dye Mixer Applet to predict exact amounts of dye to use to mix a particular color. What I use it for is just to get ideas for different combinations to try.

Olli wrote about this on the DyersLIST mailing list three years ago:

You should think of the Dye Amount value as being of an unknown unit. I cannot have it in grams or such because the actual amount of dye consumed is different for each combination of dye, dyeing method and type of canvas, and all the other additional parameters. All I am doing is giving you a proportional measure which helps you in the way that you can make observations like: "Oh, I need to double / halve / triple / whatever the amount of dye to move from this shade to that shade".

He also wrote:

I can only suggest that you find by experimenting the dye-specific ratios between the Amount values and the real-life dye amounts. For example, if you see that 2 g of a certain dye gives the same color as Amount = 0.5, then you know that one Amount unit corresponds to 4 g of the dye (calculated as 2 g / 0.5). The ratio is different for each dye!

About the "Canvas" choices: each dye color will produce a different final color depending on the exact white of the fabric being used. I imagine that the only reason there are so many choices in the Applet is because they were easy to put in. I just use the blank white, myself. Some of the choices are rather amusing, if you scroll down that long list.

By pburch at Mon, 2006-08-14 09:33 | login or register to post comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

advertisements

Powered by Webmasters.com