Purpose

Color Analysis is a group of Studio tools for examining colors directly from reference images arranged on the artwork canvas. You can sample the color of a single image pixel or calculate the average color within a square or circular area. The result is displayed as a color swatch together with its numerical color values.

Color Analysis is useful when preparing a painting: comparing light and dark areas, identifying transitional tones, studying shadow colors, and assembling a set of colors for a planned artwork.

An ARS document may contain several reference images. Color Analysis and the Sample Palette are shared by the entire canvas, rather than maintained separately for each reference image.

Color Sample

The Color Sample section displays the latest analysis result:

A large color swatch showing the sampled or calculated color.
HEX, the hexadecimal color value, for example #D1B690.
RGB, the red, green, and blue channel values, for example RGB 209, 182, 144.

Before a sample is taken, the result fields are empty or indicate that no sample is available. Selecting a previously saved sample in the Sample Palette also displays its color here.

Important: sampling a color and saving it are separate actions. A new color appears immediately in the analysis area, but it is added to the project’s Sample Palette only when you select Add Sample .

Suggested Starting Pigments

Suggested Starting Pigments is an optional aid for choosing a pigment to begin mixing toward the sampled color. It does not identify the paint originally used to create a reference image, and it is not a precise RGB-to-pigment matching tool.

When you take a new color sample or select an existing sample in the Sample Palette, ARS automatically displays up to three candidates directly below Color Sample:

  • Color swatch – an approximate, illustrative representation of the pigment. It is not a laboratory measurement of a particular paint.
  • CI pigment code, such as PG18 or PB29 – the international Color Index pigment identifier.
  • Generic pigment name, such as Viridian or Ultramarine Blue. Names currently appear in English; no paint manufacturers are specified.

The list is a suggestion, not an instruction. The first candidate will not necessarily be the best choice for every painting medium, palette, or technique. Compare the displayed swatches with the sampled color, consider the paints available to you, and decide which pigment is worth trying.

How to Use It

  1. Sample a color with Point, Square, or Circle, or select a saved sample in the palette.
  2. Read the Suggested Starting Pigments list and compare its approximate swatches with the Color Sample swatch.
  3. Choose a candidate as a starting point for mixing, then adjust value, chroma, and hue using your real paints.
  4. Pick another sample to update the suggestions automatically. No separate calculation button is needed.

For example, for a dark, muted blue-green color, ARS may suggest PG18 (Viridian), PG19 (Cobalt Green), or PG7 (Phthalocyanine Green, Blue Shade). This does not mean that all three pigments will reproduce the sampled color straight from the tube: they represent different possible starting points for a mixture.

Important Limitations

  • ARS uses a built-in, preliminary catalog of base pigments, not a brand-specific paint database. Recommendations work offline.
  • Candidates are chosen using approximate color characteristics and practical mixing categories. This is an experimental selection method, not a physical paint-mixing simulation or a verified recipe.
  • The swatch colors are only guides. Actual paint can differ with pigment variety, binder, paint thickness, ground, additives, display characteristics, and lighting. One CI code does not always correspond to a single shade.
  • For a near-neutral sample, ARS may show no candidates and display an explanation. One near-neutral RGB value is not enough to reliably recommend a single useful starting pigment.
  • The tool does not calculate mixing ratios, predict lightfastness, or currently restrict suggestions to pigments in your own paint collection.
  • Pigment suggestions do not change the saved color sample and are not stored separately in .arsproj. The sampled color remains available to the palette, strips, and Value Analysis.

The final choice is always yours. The purpose is to speed up your first decision at the palette, not to replace visual judgment or testing with real paint.

Taking a Color Sample

  1. Open an ARS document and place at least one reference image on the canvas.
  2. Enable the Sample tool.
  3. Choose Point, Square, or Circle from the adjacent selector.
  4. For Square or Circle, set the sampling area size.
  5. Click the desired visible area of the reference image. The sampled color appears immediately in Color Sample, and its Value analysis is updated below.
  6. To keep the result, select Add Sample.

You can sample colors from different reference images in the same canvas. Every saved sample retains a link to its source reference and original sampling location.

Point

In Point mode, the color is read from one pixel of the original image. No area-size parameter is needed, so the size field is hidden.

This mode is useful for examining a small color accent. However, a single pixel may not represent an entire area well, particularly in textured images, photographic noise, glossy surfaces, or complex lighting transitions.

Square

In Square mode, ARS calculates the average color within a square area. The square is centered on the location you click, and its side length is controlled by the sampling-size field.

Use this mode when you want a more representative color from a small region rather than from one pixel.

Circle

In Circle mode, ARS calculates the color within a circular area centered on the location you click. The size field specifies its diameter.

A circle is useful for sampling rounded or irregular subjects while reducing the influence of nearby areas outside the corners of a square.

Sampling Area Size

The Sample Size parameter applies to Square and Circle. The current control accepts sizes from 0.2 to 2 cm, with a default of 0.5 cm. The displayed units follow the common ARS length-unit setting (centimeters or inches).

The size is based on the physical dimensions assigned to the reference image on the canvas; it is not a fixed number of screen pixels. Zooming the view does not change the sampling area in canvas units.

When you move the pointer over a reference image, a temporary preview shows the sampling footprint before you click. This preview is neither a saved sample nor a permanent source-location marker.

Do not confuse two different sizes: this parameter defines the area from which a color is calculated. A Sample Strip uses a separate printed swatch size, independent of the original sampling area.

Working with Reference Images

ARS reads color data from the original reference image. Sampling respects the visible image area and its crop boundaries; color is not sampled from outside the cropped region.

Zooming in can make it easier to select a precise location, but the zoom percentage itself does not change the sampled color. Samples from several reference images can be collected in one shared palette.

To examine the lightness of the current sample, use Value Analysis alongside the color readout.

Practical Example

Suppose you are preparing a study of a marble surface. Use a Point sample to inspect the darkest part of a vein, then use Square or Circle to find the average color of a light stone area. Compare the RGB and Value readings, and save the samples that matter to your study. This provides a set of useful color references without covering the image with long labels.