Color Math and Layer Blend Modes

Consider this: You’re a certain kind of artist or comic colorist who uses Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint or Krita or whatever. And you’re used to coloring using multiple layers. You separate the base color from the shadows and highlights, and you use a Multiply layer for the shadows.

Then you decide you like certain colors that you’ve seen. You have a reference— you could’ve found it online or you made it yourself by hand-picking the colors. You still to use a multiply layer for shadows, but you don’t know what color to use so you get the right color. How do you find out?

How do I find out the color I need to use with a Multiply layer to get a resulting shadow color?

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