### Set Up a Profile

The first time you run Desert Paint Lab, it will prompt you to make a profile.  You may either create a new profile, or import an existing PracticalPaint reactions.txt file.

### Start Testing!

Add two ingredients to your paint bench.  Select those same ingredients in Desert Paint Lab.  Then, with the Pigment Lab dialog unobstructred, select the **Capture** button.  Once you are satisfied with the result, click the **Record** button.  The data will automatically be added to your profile.

### Clipped?  Huh?

Occasionally, you will see a warning dialog that informs you that a "Reaction clipped."  That means that one or more of the color components moved outside of the testable range.  This makes it impossible to calculate the reaction from these two ingredients.

You can solve this by doing a three-way test.

1. In your clipped reaction, let's call your **1st** ingredient **A** and your **2nd** ingredient **B**.

1. Select a **non-catalyst** ingredient **C** for which you have already tested **C + A** and **C + B**.  It is OK if there was a reaction in those earlier tests.  Desert Paint Lab can work out the math.

1. In Desert Paint Lab, select ingredients as follows:

    1. **C**

    2. **A**

    3. **B**

1. Add the ingredients in your Pigment Lab _in exactly that order_.

1. Capture.

1. Record.

For clipped reactions, your **C** ingredient should be one that corrects for the clipped color.  Here are some suggested **C** ingredients for clipping correction:

Clip Color  | Clip Direction | Correction | Suggested "C" Ingredient

------------|----------------|------------|---------------------------

Red         | Low            | +Red       | Carrot (224) or Red Sand (144)

Red         | High           | -Red       | Silver Powder (16) or Toad Skin (48)

Green       | High           | -Green     | Red Sand (16) or Silver Powder (16)

Blue        | High           | -Blue      | Red Sand (24) or Clay (32) or Carrot (32) or Silver Powder (32)

In many cases, it may be easiest to go back and do these three-way tests after you have finished all of your other testing.

### Catalysts

For catalyst to catalyst reaction tests, follow the three-way instructions, as above.

### Finishing Up

When you're done testing your reactions, you can either use the built-in Pigment Lab simulator (`Window > Run Simulator`) to experiment with recipes, without dipping into your precious ingredient stocks.  Alternatively, you can export your reactions in PracticalPaint format.

## Generating Recipes

### What do all these settings do?

* _Minimum Ingredients_ is the minimum number of ingredients the generator will use in a recipe. It's best to leave this at 1 so the simple single-ingredient recipes are included (like 10 carrots for 'carrot')

* _Maximum Ingredients_ limits how many ingredients will be used in a recipe. Ingredients after the 5th will still affect the resulting color, but won't use their reactions.

* _Silk Ribbon Recipes_ sets the generator up to create recipes for silk ribbons. Ribbons use a base concentration of 50 instead of the 10 that is used for paint.

* _Maximum Concentration_ is the maximum recipe concentration. Recipes with a concentration above 10 will still produce a single db of paint, but can use larger quantities of ingredients to make smaller color adjustments. Increasing this will increase the time required to search all the possible combinations.

* _Full Quantity Depth_ is the number of ingredients in the recipe that will use up to the "full quantity" value as the limit for those ingredients over the ingredient's maximum.

* _Full Quantity_ is the maximum quantity of any ingredient to use up to the Full Quantity Depth. For example, with a Full Quantity of 15 and a Full Quantity Depth of 3, a recipe could use up to 15 of each of the first 3 ingredients. After that it will be limited by the setting for that specific ingredient.

## Known Issues

### Slowness

If you are running on a multi-screen system, or a very high-resolution screen, you may find that Desert Paint Lab is rather slow in determining paint reactions.  That's because you have a lot of screen real-estate to scan, to look for the Pigment Lab dialog.  You can speed up the scanning process by ensuring that your Pigment Lab Dialog is as far to the upper-left of the screen as possible.

### Multiple Displays

// Desert Paint Lab Ingredients

// Name | Practical Paint Name | RGB values

// These should be kept in the order they show up on the paint bench

Cabbage Juice	| Cabbage	| 128, 64, 144

Carrot		| Carrot	| 224, 112, 32

Clay		| Clay		| 128, 96, 32

Dead Tongue	| DeadTongue	| 112, 64, 64

Toad Skin	| ToadSkin	| 48, 96, 48

Red Sand	| RedSand	| 144, 16, 24

Lead		| Lead		| 80, 80, 96

Silver Powder	| Silver	| 16, 16, 32

Iron		| Iron		| 96, 48, 32

Copper		| Copper	| 64, 192, 192

Sulfur		| Sulfur	| catalyst

Potash		| Potash	| catalyst

Lime		| Lime		| catalyst

Saltpeter	| Saltpeter	| catalyst

// Ingredients are in the form:

// Name | RGB values | cost | enabled (Y/N) | bulk/normal | max items per paint (1-20)

//

// It is recommended to only change the cost value

// It is not recommended to set many of the ingredients above 10 per paint

Cabbage		| 128, 64, 144   | 8      | Y | bulk    | 10

Carrot		| 224, 112, 32   | 8      | Y | bulk    | 10

Clay		| 128, 96, 32    | 10     | Y | bulk    | 20

DeadTongue	| 112, 64, 64    | 500    | Y | normal  | 4

ToadSkin	| 48, 96, 48     | 500    | Y | normal  | 4

RedSand		| 144, 16, 24    | 4      | Y | bulk    | 20

Lead		| 80, 80, 96     | 50     | Y | normal  | 6

Silver		| 16, 16, 32     | 50     | Y | normal  | 6

Iron		| 96, 48, 32     | 30     | Y | normal  | 8

Copper		| 64, 192, 192   | 30     | Y | normal  | 8

Sulfur      | catalyst       | 15     | Y | normal  | 1

Potash      | catalyst       | 50     | Y | normal  | 1

Lime        | catalyst       | 20     | Y | normal  | 1

Saltpeter   | catalyst       | 10     | Y | normal  | 1