Student grade has more fillers and not as much pigment.

Half decent brands don’t use fillers in their student paint. Winsor & Newton and Rembrandt will categorically tell you they don’t, and from my experience they don’t.

Their student lines have slighty less pigment (a bit more oily), have a smaller range of pigments in student paint, and the pigments tend to be slightly less fine.

Remember that the quality of student paint of today, is far far higher quality than paint being used to make amazing paintings just a few centuries ago. There are some extremely good painters out there using “student paint”.

Old Holland: Expensive. [B]They grind each pigment in a ceramic bowl[/B]

color me extremely sceptical of that statement
.

There must be a reason they are more expensive(?).

Some brands are just expensive because they are expensive, they try to attract a certain crowd. “Since 1745, handmade with the help of fairies”.

Snob paint as we like to call it.

Of course, there is an argument that some expensive brands tend to use more pigment. And in general, you’ll find that more expensive brands do tend to use more pigment.

But this is not something that will be universally experienced as something positive by all painters. Some people paint without solvents, and paint that is full of pigment can often be stiff and hard to handle without solvents. Some people like more oily paints that are more usable without having to modify them.

And some people don’t, they enjoy very stiff paint with lots and lots of pigment, as much as possible, and those people spend more on more pigmented paint.

And some people are just snobs, and they’ll go for the really expensive brands, because it makes them feel good. More power to them, they keep the industry alive and are subsidizing the rest of us.

It’s a choice you make.

They use “Three roller machines” with rollers made from porphyry stone.

“handmade paint” … with machine….but hands are close by ! …= “HANDMADE!” … = $80 tube of naphthol red (ASTM rating III)

new mercedes benz for CEO…not hand made

Grinding the pigment is a completely separate operation than dispersion of the pigment in binder, which is what those rollers are doing, Alex, you know this right? those rollers don’t grind the pigment, they mix it with the oil. Grinding the pigment is done in the dry state with no oil.
I grind pigment in a mortar and pestle, then disperse it in oil on a tile slab, but I seldom do it anymore.

I guess, you meant milling? Three roller machine can’t break pigment particles and aggregates. They are too hard to break. You need ball mill, jet mill or something to do that job. But three rollers breaks agglomerates of pigment, disperse them and help to wet well dispersed pigment particles with oil. Colorman push paint into this machine several times to achieve homogeneous paste and superb handling properties. He did “hand made” control of paint quality

Good assessment of the various brands, dangerous place to put such information here in the technical forums. We are sure to break this down and argue about something, without fail. (see above)

In regards to that argument in fact, a good question is whether the tools are the ones making the paint, or the person operating those tools. Further even, is it the art that makes itself and we are just the tools that perform the function?

All things are handmade so long as someone is there controlling the quality and adjusting the variables by hand, when a computer analyzes data and automatically adjusts the variables itself. . . then it’s not hand made anymore. There is in fact, little wrong with completely computer made paints though, so long as the quality is the result desired, automation makes the prices go down dramatically. The unfortunate side effect of automation is that less people have jobs.

Now then, back on topic. Generally people like a thicker paint because it’s easier to thin out a thick paint with medium then it is to thicken a thin paint. This is partly true, one can always just set their paint on a paper towel to soak out some of the oil and end up with an extremely firm paint, but it might end up underbound. This is a risk worth the effort if you are painting into a couch though, as the couch will provide enough oil to keep it sticking to the surface.

Did you see this from Old Holland’s website?
[url]https://www.oldholland.com/discover/production-process/[/url]

First the pigment and oil are mixed in a large metal vat with steel mixer blades.
Then this mix is put through a triple roll (apparently porphyry or ceramic rollers) mill several times.
Then they are packaged in tubes.

Ok I believe that, but the claim was that pigments were all ground in a ceramic bowl, probably just mistaken wording.