Black Paint Makes White Paint Whiter

Many people believe that putting a tiny amount of black paint in a large tin of white paint makes it whiter. Can this be true? Is there an explanation?

ChatGPT says this:-

The belief that adding a tiny amount of black paint to a large tin of white paint makes it whiter is a myth. From a purely physical and chemical standpoint, adding black paint, which contains pigments that absorb light, to white paint, which reflects most of the light, will generally make the white paint darker or at best, neutralize its brightness slightly, not make it whiter.

Here's a detailed explanation:

Color Mixing Basics: When you mix colors, you're combining the properties of their pigments. White paint contains pigments that reflect most wavelengths of visible light, making it appear white. Black paint contains pigments that absorb most wavelengths of visible light. Adding even a small amount of black paint to white paint introduces more light-absorbing pigments, which typically reduces the overall reflectivity of the mixture, making it appear grayish or slightly darker.

Perception of Whiteness: Human perception of color can be influenced by surrounding colors and lighting conditions. Sometimes, small amounts of certain colors can neutralize unwanted tints in white paint. For instance, a small amount of blue can make a warm white appear cooler. However, this does not apply to black paint making white paint appear whiter.

Paint Formulation: Professional paint formulation sometimes involves adding small amounts of various pigments to achieve a desired hue or neutralize an unwanted tint. This is often done with complementary colors (e.g., adding a bit of blue to cancel out yellow undertones). However, black is typically not used for this purpose because it would likely muddy the color rather than enhance the whiteness.

In conclusion, from a scientific and practical standpoint, adding black paint to white paint does not make it whiter. This belief might stem from misunderstandings about color theory or from anecdotes where other colors are used to correct tints, but it does not hold true for black paint.

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I have heard in the past that adding a tiny amount of blue makes white whiter, but, I think that's just perception under certain circumstances.

When I worked in a commercial laundry we used to add a bit of blue dye to our batches of white sheets to counteract any yellowing...it works

My very old "chemistry for kiddies" textbook says

"The 'blue-bag' --that popular weapon of the washerwoman, -- contains ultramarine, a complex substance of composition Na₄Al₃Si₃S₂O₁₂ made by heating a mixture of kaolin, sodium carbonate (or sulphate), sulphur and charcoal. Linen of a yellowish tinge appears white if rinsed in a solution of ultramarine and then dried; but lavish use of the blue-bag does not mask inefficient washing."

I remember it, my mother used them.

I remember "bluing" being associated with the laundry, but I was to young then to care.

Yes, I’ve heard that, and now I’ve come to think that all the liquid detergents gets the whites whiter not neccessary cleaner is nothing but a facade of marketing.

Which explains why most laundry detergents is… blue.

I would like someone to put the identical question to "Copilot" to see the comparison. In the few things I have tried, they are very similar, but Copilot sounded a wee bit better to me.

Many people believe that putting a tiny amount of black paint in a large tin of white paint makes it whiter. Can this be true? Is there an explanation?

Copilot says:-

Adding a tiny amount of black paint to a large tin of white paint actually won't make the white paint whiter. This concept is a misconception. When you mix black paint with white, you essentially create a different shade of grey, depending on the amount of black paint added.

The reasoning might come from the idea of adjusting the "temperature" of the white paint. Sometimes, very bright whites can have a slight blue or cold tint. Adding a small amount of a warm color, like a touch of black (which often leans towards a very dark neutral), can make the white paint appear warmer or more neutral in tone.

However, this doesn't make the white paint "whiter." It simply changes the tint or tone of the white paint. If you're looking to make your paint whiter, the best way is to add more pure white pigment.

Is there a painting project you have in mind? ��

Gemini says:-

The idea that adding a tiny amount of black paint to white paint makes it "whiter" is a common perception, but it's not quite accurate in the way most people think. Here's a breakdown:

What's Actually Happening:

* Neutralizing Undertones:

* White paint isn't always a pure, brilliant white. It often has subtle undertones of other colors, such as yellow or warm tones.

* A very small amount of black can help neutralize these undertones, making the white appear cooler and, therefore, seemingly brighter.

* It's more about removing the "off" colors rather than adding to the whiteness itself.

* Perception of Contrast:

* By slightly shifting the white to a cooler tone, it can create a greater contrast with other colors in the room or environment. This increased contrast can give the illusion of a brighter white.

* Essentially the slight change in the white paint, can make it contrast better with other colors, therefore making it appear to be a brighter white.

* It's About Subtlety:

* This effect only works with extremely small amounts of black. Too much black will obviously result in a gray or darker shade.

What's Not Happening:

* Black Doesn't Add Light:

* Black absorbs light, it does not create it. So, it cannot make white paint physically emit more light.

* The perceived "whiteness" is a result of how our eyes perceive the color after the undertones are neutralized.

In summary:

* It's not that black paint makes white paint whiter, but rather that it can subtly alter the white paint's tone, making it appear cleaner and brighter by neutralizing unwanted undertones.

Therefore, it is more about the perception of the white paint, than actually making the white paint a "brighter" white.

DeepSeek says:-

The idea that adding a tiny amount of black paint to a large tin of white paint makes it whiter is a common misconception. In reality, adding black paint to white paint will not make it whiter; instead, it will make the white paint slightly darker or grayish, depending on the amount of black added.

Here’s why:

1. **Color Mixing Basics**: When you mix black and white paints, you are essentially adding a darker pigment to a lighter one. Black paint absorbs most wavelengths of light, while white paint reflects them. Adding black to white reduces the overall reflectivity of the mixture, making it less bright and slightly darker.

2. **Perception of Whiteness**: The perception of "whiteness" is related to how much light is reflected by a surface. Pure white reflects nearly all light, making it appear bright and clean. When black is added, even in small amounts, it reduces the reflectivity, making the color less white and more off-white or light gray.

3. **Optical Illusion**: Sometimes, people might perceive a slightly off-white or light gray color as "whiter" because it contrasts more sharply with surrounding colors or because it appears brighter in certain lighting conditions. However, this is a trick of perception, not an actual increase in whiteness.

4. **Practical Example**: If you were to mix a small amount of black paint into white paint, you would notice that the mixture becomes a very light gray. This is because the black pigment has diluted the pure white, reducing its brightness.

In summary, adding black paint to white paint does not make it whiter. Instead, it makes the white paint less reflective and slightly darker. The belief that it makes the white paint whiter is likely due to a misunderstanding of color mixing or an optical illusion.

Perplexity says:-

The belief that adding a tiny amount of black paint to a large tin of white paint makes it "whiter" is not accurate. Adding black to white paint will create a very light gray, not a purer or brighter white. This misconception might stem from the idea that black could enhance opacity or coverage, but any such effect is minimal and imperceptible to the naked eye46.

White paint achieves its brightness from pigments like titanium dioxide, which reflect light effectively. Adding black reduces this reflectivity, lowering the paint's brightness and chroma16. Thus, instead of making the white "whiter," it dulls it slightly.

Perplexity also adds lots of links to further reading:

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I agree that with all these AIs, there could be a problem with "garbage in garbage out", but, in this case it's hard to disagree with their premises or reasoning. I think that: ChatGPT gives the best explanation of why the original statement is wrong, and, Gemini gives the best explanation of why people are misled.

Thanks for that comparison--even more thorough than I expected. Now I should go back and re-read them!

Just below, in #21, I notice the phrase "facade of marketing." More things than we realize are influenced by "marketing hype!"

Incidentally, Deepseek is opensource and is now available on many servers including Nvidia.

https://build.nvidia.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1

Curiously it still refuses to answer questions about for example Tierneman square: you'd 've thought they'd have done a little retraining.

I thought it might be a trick of the lighting,but I had him put it in his analyzer to compare the 2 whites.The one with the black registered a higher index(more reflectivity)than the other, plain white.This is more scientific than empirical evidence.Several contractors said the same thing.I know the eyes and brain can make things appear different colors,like the famous dress that seemed to be different colors to different people.

Hunter Labs has a machine that analyses color of fabrics to get the same color every time,and it has some strange colored lenses in it,not the normal Red Green Blue of tv sets or monitors.

I know mixing colors of light will get different colors than mixing the same color pigments.Pigments absorbs all colors except the ones you see.
Pigments are absorptive,colored light is additive.

For instance,mixing blue and yellow pigments gives green,mixing yellow and blue light does not.

A lot of good info here if anyone wants to read it,but I still do not understand what is happening with the black/white question.

https://www.hunterlab.com/media/documents/basics-of-color-theory.pdf

I have tested chatGPT enough to know that even potentially usefull, it will output bs if it was programmed with bs data on a specific topic. When it comes to narratives, it gets worse. Now I tried once to increase the reflectivity of matt white paint for using a wall as a projector screen. Best results I got was adding less than 1% silver paint. Projected image was like twice as bright, but wall at normal light was actually darker. Adding more silver (actually it was aluminum) paint, increased reflectivity but result got worse from there because reflectivity got more directional and picture quality deteriorated (too bright center) So, there's more to white than white (LOL) S.M.

When you have more light it will be more reflective, but whten the light goes off it will look darker.

This was well known when we used to get paint mixed for auto uses. Have you ever looked at some black paints which have been exposed to the sun for a long time and found that from different angles various colours can be seen. It appears that black can be made up of many colours and each absorbs the various spectrum colours. SO black isn't really black it just appears to be because of the absorption.

As for chat gp, garbage in garbage out, all depends on the wokeness of the programmer.

IMHO:

The only idea I have about this is:Black is a non-color.It absorbs all colors.A small amount of black absorbs some of the colors that make up white,perhaps the weaker ones,like yellow,and makes the white appear whiter by absorbing some of the colors toward the red end of the spectrum.But then again,pigment colors and light colors are not the same,so the result is not what you would expect.For instance:Red and green light make yellow.Green and blue make cyan.Mix all 3 primary light colors (RGB) and you get white.

Pigments use the RYB scale of colors,which is entirely different results than light colors.

This is as far as I have gone in researching colors,but I still have questions,such as:When you mix 2 color pigments,like blue and green,you get yellow.But take a photo of the yellow picture on a monitor,and you have to mix red and green light to get yellow.

There are people that have an extra color receptor in their eye that allows them to see millions of more colors that normal.This is usually in women.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-found-a-woman-whose-eyes-have-a-whole-new-type-of-colour-receptor

I don't totally understand all I know about this.

If anyone can break it down into bite size nibbles,I would appreciate it.

The water may only come up the the chests on ducks,but the puddle is very deep.

Here is a link:https://www.canva.com/colors/color-wheel/

All these weird properties of color have nothing to do with light, per se, but the human visual system. Everything that emits light or reflects light has a spectrum, and that spectrum is encoded into just four values, for the rods and the three types of cones ( red, green, and blue) as shown in the plot below. The sensation of color originates from the relative values of these four values. (A huge amount of information is discarded.)

This document explains it pretty well.

https://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/huvision.htm

Here is my guess:

The color reflected is the product of two things: the reflectivity of the paint and the spectrum of the illumination. If your eyes perceive "whiteness" as a combination of brightness and flatness of the spectrum, then perhaps a slightly less bright but flatter spectrum may look "whiter".

I believe it has to do with the undertones, the LRV rating, surrounding lighting type and colors....It looks like the black may be changing the nature of the undertones from warmer to cooler making a colder white...

https://www.loveremodeled.com/high-reflective-white/

I wonder what the result would be if you mixed the Whitest White with the

Blackest Black,in varying proportions.

https://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913 Blackest Black

https://www.sciencealert.com/this-paint-is-the-whitest-white-humanity-has-ever-produced Whitest white

Jus' wonderin'

After viewing the link you provided, I think you are right, the black is absorbing some of the undertones,depending on the ratio of black to white.

It would seem to be about perception and the instrument at the paint store probably confirms that.

There is no universal "black", but a combination of absorbing pigments that are mixed. The added black are pulling the spectrum density lower in those tones we perceive as "dark" and leaving the tones we perceive as bright. This would show in the instrument as a brighter white and maybe even as a higher colour temperature.

Most fluorescent tubes emit apparent white, but the spectrum mix can vary from cool daylight to bright and described as brightness relative to the angle of the sun above the horizon. D85, D65 and so on.

Remember in the TV B&W days that presenters would wear synthetic shirts since they appeared whiter.

From memory, one "knock" is around 0.5cc from those pigment machines.

When painting, white paint (as opposed to white tint base) has the best capability to cover background. It is loaded with pigment, but it is often handy to tint white a few tones away from your desired finish coat and then topcoat with tinted "neutral base" or the other bases.

The further I go, the deeper the water gets. Hunter Labs has a rather unique color perception scale.

I don't think anyone fully understands color perception, but it is good enough for practical purposes.

White perception depends on the background surrounding it. A white object on a black background will appear whiter than the same object against a lighter back ground.

I know that the brain combines different color ratios to produce the illusion of one single color, like in TV,RGB are combined to produce the different colors. Certain colors cannot be produced this way and can be used to give the illusion of invisibility, the so-called "Green Out" of the background on tv, like the background of news or weather.

Perhaps this combining and averaging by the brain works on a microscopic level as well. If so, the black pigment serves as a dark background for the white pigment, making the white appear whiter.

I think I may put some of my bright white, that has a shot of black per gallon, under the microscope to see if there are separate specs of black in it.

I don't know; Jus' thinkin'

Here is a strange one to ponder:

https://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-paintings-of-a-congenitally-blind-man.html

More here

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/esref-armagan-a-blind-turkish-painter-who-sees-through-his-fingertips-53568

The Perception of White is relative to the background surrounding it. There is no White pigment. There is no combination of pigments to make white, there are only things that are naturally white. The purest white is unpolluted snow. Certain chemicals, like titanium white are white, but they are not a pigment, per se. White reflects all light colors, and pigments are subtractive colors. Adding black in small amounts to white enhances the background by providing the white with a black background, on a imperceptible level. The brain interprets what it sees however and make sense of the results .(A NTSC STANDARD TYPE) tv screen is composed of 3 basic colors, but the brain merges them together into a single color. The closer you get to the screen, the more separated the individual pixels become. Under a magnifying glass you can see a uniform arrangement of RGB dots.

Light color is additive-- the opposite of pigments which is subtractive.

What you see as individual pigments is not what your brain interprets.

A polar bear appears white until seen against the snow.

A pale, greyish white on a black background will appear whiter than the same color against a pure white background; a matter of contrast.

Kind of hard to wrap your head around, I know, but that's how it works.

I recall I must have been 7-8 years old. My older brother was telling me that all the colors mixed together would be white, my 8 year mind didn’t believe him, it should be black I countered.

he was right. Newtonianly speaking…

and to add to your phrase,

“ Light color is additive-- the opposite of pigments which is subtractive.”

it was Issac Newton that broke down that white light is composed of many colors that are at different wavelengths with the prism experiment.

If he was talking about light colors, he was right, but not pigments.

You were right about pigments.

To add to the confusion, when pigments are added to get another color, say green ,the blue and yellow add together to make green.

If you take a picture of that green ,it is a basic light color and does not require mixing of any other colors....Hmm?!

After much thought, I think I finally understand what is happening. Imagine a pure white paint on a pure white background, and they look the same, You cannot tell the white from the background. There is no contrast between the colors.

Now imagine a screen of pixels, one white, one black arranged uniformly side by side. The white pixels are surrounded by the black pixels and like wise the black pixels are surrounded by the white pixels. The perceived color will be gray.

Now, start removing the black pixels, with the same number of white pixels unchanged, and the perception gradually appears whiter when the black pixels go from grey to a very small amount. The black provides a darker background to provide more contrast to the white. This cannot be seen with the naked eye, like the colored pixels on a tv, but the brain perceives this as a whiter white because of the contrasting background, similar to the mental merging(perception) of the RGB colors of a Tv .

Now it as clear as mud to me.?

Speaking of color, at times it depends on the environment.

I was looking for siding for some houses I had. it was between (2) (2) color combinations.

Gray and Green or Midnight Blue and Charcoal Grey. I looked at the swashes at the store, and went with the Blue and Grey. As I was unloading the grey in the natural sunlight it had a green tinge to it. It was alright for me, because that was one of the color combinations.

You need to know what type of light environment your going to install it at.

In another incident, when I had my fab shop, I had sodium lights in the shop. We did some polished sanitary equipment. I delivered it to the customer which had a White lighting on the factory floor. And the weld color showed up. I had to have my people rub that color out.

From then on, when equipment was finished, I move the equipment outside for final inspection until I installed LED lights in part of the shop,