Dye

Wool dyes are items used to change the color of wool. They were added in the beta 1.2 update. There are currently seven "primary" dyes (red, yellow, blue, green, white, black and brown), seven "secondary" dyes, and two "tertiary" dyes.

Uses
Dyes can be placed with wool on a crafting table (in any position) to dye a single block. It can also be used on sheep to paint them. After shearing, the wool dropped will be of the painted color as well, sometimes yielding more colored wool than from crafting (see Notes section). After shearing colored sheep, they will not regrow their wool. Additionally, there are naturally occurring gray, light gray and black sheep that drop corresponding color wool as well.

Primary Colours
These primary dyes (with the exception of cocoa beans) are created from a single ingredient found in nature somewhere.

Secondary Colours
Secondary dyes are created by combining primary dyes together.

Tertiary Colours
Tertiary dyes are created by combining least one secondary dye. Magenta and light gray are currently the only tertiary dyes available.

Data Values
The color of a dye item depends on a secondary data field (beyond the item ID of 254), which is also used to store the damage for tools and so is commonly referred to as a “damage value”.

Trivia

 * Note that the reversed color values closely resemble an ANSI or VGA palette with the biggest outlier being Orange.

Farbstoff Barwniki