BrushLens by Soren Ulsig · Reference analysis for oil painters

Know exactly what to mix - before you touch the canvas

Eight tools that decode any reference photo in under a minute, on the phone already in your pocket - from mixing recipes in your own palette, like 40% Yellow Ochre + 40% Titanium White + 20% Alizarin Crimson, to a live camera check of your drawing. No more scraping off failed passages.

Try free for 7 days

Then $7/month. Cancel in one click, anytime.

Or $59/year · or $199 lifetime

Your photos never leave your device

Value steps

5 groups · Grayscale

Threshold

Dark 52% Light 48%

Closest match

Temperature map

COOL

WARM

Dominant: warm skin tones

4:5 Portrait

Cropped 4:5

See the tools

The tools

Read your reference. Then check your painting.

Values

Group your reference into 2 to 10 value steps. See the big shapes immediately, in grayscale, umber, or full color. This is what most painters skip and then struggle with.

BrushLens Color and Value tool showing sampled color matched to Burnt Umber from palette

Color & Value

Tap any spot and get an actual mixing recipe from your palette - like "40% Yellow Ochre + 40% Titanium White + 20% Alizarin Crimson" with a match score. Lock a base mix and every reading after it comes back as your base plus what you add, the way you really work from one pile of paint. Hold for a precision loupe, or switch to Value Map mode and plot up to 10 points on a value scale.

Temperature

See the warm and cool zones mapped across your reference, with breakdowns showing the temperature balance in your lights, mids, and shadows. Get concrete advice on canvas toning and color strategy.

Notan

Reduce everything to a 2- or 3-value pattern with live ratio readouts. If your notan doesn't read, your painting won't either. Check it here before committing hours on canvas.

Chroma

See exactly where your reference is most and least saturated. Isolate mode keeps only the high-chroma areas in color - so you stop over-saturating shadows and know where to spend your strongest color notes.

06 New

Chroma Curves

Tap the darkest point of a form, tap the lightest - and see exactly how chroma travels through the passage, with a gold marker at the peak and a mixing recipe for it. The light doesn't just get lighter. It gets quieter.

07 New

Proportion Check

Point your camera at your painting and your reference ghosts over it, live. Flip on Difference mode and your mistakes literally light up while everything correct goes dark. It's your teacher's feedback loop - without the teacher. Check, don't trace.

Crop

Plan your composition with common canvas ratios and composition guides (Rule of Thirds, Golden Ratio, Diagonals). Find the strongest crop before you start drawing.

Base mixes

Here's why a face made of separate mixes never hangs together

BrushLens with a locked skin base mix, reading 85% Skin base mix plus 10% Burnt Umber plus 5% Titanium White at 95% match

You mix a skin tone that finally works. Then you move two inches across the cheek, mix the next one from scratch, and it doesn't belong to the first. Do that fifteen times and the face falls apart - not because any single color is wrong, but because none of them came from the same place.

That isn't how you mix at the palette. You mix one mother color for the midtone, divide it into piles, and push each pile: a little white into the light, a little blue into the shadow, a touch of rose where the ear turns warm. One mix carries the whole passage, and that shared parent is what makes skin read as skin instead of as a patchwork.

So BrushLens works the same way. Pick the tubes your base is built from, sample your midtone, and lock it. Every reading after that comes back as your base plus what you add - 85% Skin base mix + 10% Burnt Umber + 5% Titanium White - instead of a new recipe every time. One pile, pushed.

Set up as many bases as the painting needs. Skin for the head, another for a background you'd never mix from skin tone, a third for the fabric. Switch between them as you move around the canvas.

Away from the screen

For the ones who paint from paper

Plenty of painters print the reference and clip it beside the canvas rather than squinting at a phone with wet hands. Two things in BrushLens are made for exactly that, and both come out as a file you can print.

Printable BrushLens tinting chart: Yellow Ochre crossed with every other color in the palette, each column stepped down in white

The mixing chart. Hold one pigment constant and BrushLens crosses it with everything else you own, then walks each column down in steps of white. Reading a column top to bottom shows how far that pigment carries before white swallows it - that is tinting strength, the difference between a tube you add by the knifeful and one where a speck takes over. Every square has its mix printed underneath, so you find it by eye and mix by the numbers.

Printable BrushLens painting record: reference photo with numbered sample points and the mixing recipe for each one listed below

The painting record. Every color you sampled, numbered on the reference and listed underneath with its recipe. Print it, tape it to the back of the panel, and when you come back three weeks later you pick up the same mixes instead of guessing at what you did.

Who built this

Built by a painter, not a software company

I'm Soren - an oil painter and educator. I built BrushLens because I kept doing the same analysis by hand before every painting: squinting for values, checking temperature, testing crops. Every tool in here is something I actually use at the easel, built around one principle: value first, then temperature, then color.

- Soren, oil painter & educator

“Your app is amazing! I’m finally understanding color and value!”

Kim · BrushLens user

“Portraits can be so challenging so I find this tool so helpful. This is such an efficient and valuable tool to help the learning process!”

Lauri · BrushLens user

“As a beginner I enjoy your method of doing the values first.”

Ciara · student of Soren's

Everything, for less than one tube of paint

$7 / month

7 days free - cancel anytime

or $59/year · or $199 lifetime

All eight tools, unlimited use - analysis before you paint, feedback while you paint
Mixing recipes from your palette - 100+ pigments, custom colors
Lockable base mixes, so a whole passage comes out of one pile of paint
Printable mixing charts and painting records for working away from the screen
Every new tool and update, included as it ships
Works on phone, tablet and desktop - nothing to install
Your photos never leave your device

Try free for 7 days Already a member? Log in

If it doesn't change how you start your next painting, cancel in one click and pay nothing.

Common questions

Before you ask

Do I need to install anything?

No. BrushLens runs in your browser - phone, tablet, or desktop. If you want it on your home screen like an app, you can add it in two taps, but it's optional.

Does it work on iPhone and iPad?

Yes. BrushLens is built mobile-first and works on iPhone, iPad, Android, and any desktop browser. Saved studies stay on your device.

Does it work with my paint palette?

Yes. Pick from presets like the Essential 12 or Zorn, or build your own from a library of 100+ pigments - you can even add custom colors. Mixing recipes are calculated from the exact colors you own.

I use different palettes for different work. Can I save more than one?

Yes. Save as many palettes as you like and name them however you think - by instructor, by genre, by the box you take outside. Switch between them in a tap, and they follow your account to your phone, tablet and desktop.

I paint from a printed reference, not a screen. Is this any use?

That's what the printable mixing chart and painting record are for. Print the chart on the same printer as your reference and the color shift lands on both, so the square you match by eye still points at the right mix - and the recipe is printed beside it, which is what you actually mix from.

What if it's not for me?

Then it costs you nothing. Try every tool free for 7 days on your own reference photos. If it doesn't change how you start your next painting, cancel in one click and you won't be charged.

How do I cancel?

One click in your account, any time. Cancel during the 7-day trial and you pay nothing at all.