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Making a color chart is the most tedious, and yet best way I know to understand what pigments will do for a painter.  I credit artist and teacher John Poon who made us do this exercise in a class I took with him in 2008. I have been hoarding Daniel Smith's Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet ever since I learned the company is no longer making it. I've been hoping to find another pigment that will have the same effect.

Here, you see my line-up of paints that I hope will get that luminous deep red:

Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet, M.Graham's Transparent Red Iron Oxide, Michael Harding's Tranparent Oxide Red, Van Gogh Transparent Oxide Red, M. Graham's Terra Rosa, Michael Harding Indian Red, and Rembrandt's Orange Ochre.

A note about "transparent" vs "opaque" which might seem pretty obvious--you can see through transparent and not so much through opaques.  You'll see what I mean in the last photo.

On the bottom line, I mixed each one with a near-equal amount of ultramarine blue.  There is no utter black in nature, so if you want something close to black, find the two darkest colors on your palette and mix them.  This becomes important when painting fissures in rock. Going up, the next line is the pure color from the tube.  Third line up is that color mixed with white in an approximately 50/50 amount.  Finally, the top row is that same pigment mixed with a favorite of mine "pale ochre".  I use that pigment to avoid the chalkiness often found when using  white.  Let's see what happens when laid out onto a white canvas:

The first five, all in the same order as mentioned above, are "transparents".  Using a paper towel, I wiped off the right side of each block to show how you can see through a transparent pigment.  It will tint, but not throughly cover an area.  That becomes important when glazing, or getting that light-in-the-shadows appearance. The three on the right are opaque.  The right side of each block has also been wiped, but you really cannot see the canvas underneath.  

After doing this exercise, I find that most, when combined with the deep blue on the bottom row, reveal too much yellow content (blue+yellow=green) especially the one on the far right.  I still remain in love with quinacridone burnt scarlet (second column) and although combining it with blue this time makes it look purple, a little more of it would balance and bend it toward a neutral dark.  All the others take me too far afield from that rich reddish color I'm looking for. 

So, yes, I am a hoarder.  There may come a day when there are no more tubes of quinacridone burnt scarlet left in the world.  I hope my supply lasts me a lifetime!