How to Color by Number on daubday: A Beginner's Guide

Color by number is one of the simplest ideas around: every area of a picture has a number, every number matches a color, and you fill each area with its color until the picture appears. daubday is free, needs no sign-up, and runs in the browser on both phones and computers, so you can start right away. This guide walks through your first picture from the first tap to the finished result.

Picking a picture and a color

The quickest place to begin is the home page, which always shows the picture of the day. If you would rather choose, open the gallery. It is organized into 16 themes, from mandalas and patchwork to koi, cats, and city nights. Each card shows a difficulty label and how many colors the picture uses:

• Easy pictures have fewer than 30 areas, which makes them a good first try.
• Medium pictures have fewer than 60 areas.
• Detailed pictures have more, and reward a bit of patience and zooming.

When you open a picture, the palette sits along the bottom of the screen as a row of numbered color circles. Tap a circle to select that color. Every unfilled area that belongs to the selected color is tinted a light gray-blue, so you can see at a glance where it still needs to go. That tint is the most useful thing on the screen for a beginner: instead of hunting for a tiny number, you look for the soft blue patches.

Tapping areas and what the numbers mean

Each area of the outline carries a number. That number is the color it should be, matching the number on one of the palette circles. With a color selected, tap any area showing the same number and it fills in.

You don't have to color in any particular order. Some people work one color at a time, others jump around and fill whatever catches their eye. Both work equally well.

Numbers only appear when an area is large enough on screen to fit one. If you see blank spaces with no number, they are usually just small, and zooming in will reveal them. The guide to coloring tiny areas covers zooming, the Hint button, and other ways to handle detailed pictures comfortably.

When you tap the wrong area

Mistakes don't cost anything. If you tap an area that belongs to a different color, nothing gets painted. Instead, a short message tells you which color that area actually needs, such as "That's color 7", and the number briefly flashes red. You can then pick color 7 from the palette, or simply carry on with the color you had.

When a color is finished

Once every area of a color is filled, its palette circle shows a check mark, and the next unfinished color is selected for you automatically. This keeps you moving without having to scroll through the palette looking for what's left.

Progress, the timer, and saving

The bar at the top of the coloring screen shows two things: how far along you are as a percentage, and a timer counting how long you have been coloring. The timer is there for curiosity, not pressure. There is no score and no penalty for going slowly.

Your progress saves automatically as you go. You can close the tab, come back tomorrow, and pick up exactly where you left off. A few things are worth knowing:

• Progress is stored in the browser you are using, on that device.
• It does not sync between devices, or between different browsers on the same device.
• Clearing your browser data will delete saved progress.

If you mostly color on your phone, adding daubday to your Home Screen makes it feel more like an app and easier to return to. The install guide explains how on Android and iPhone.

Finishing a picture

When the last area is filled, daubday plays a short replay that redraws the picture in the exact order you colored it. It's a nice way to see your own path through the picture, whether you went color by color or worked from one corner outward.

After the replay you'll find a few options:

• Share opens your phone's share sheet with the finished image and a short result text. On devices without a share sheet, it copies the text and downloads the image instead.
• Save image downloads the finished picture as a PNG file.
• Save video saves the replay as a short timelapse video. Some browsers, such as Safari on iPhone, may not support this; if so, save an image instead.
• Look again plays the replay one more time.

The result text includes the picture number, how many colors and areas it had, and how long you spent, followed by a link. From the finished screen you can also jump to another picture or to the next day's picture.

That's everything you need for a first picture. Start with an Easy one, let the gray-blue tint guide you, and don't worry about wrong taps. If you enjoy it, the picture of the day is a good way to make it a small, regular habit.