Re: painting a room
Re: painting a room
- Subject: Re: painting a room
- From: Bob Smith <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 11:59:59 -0600
michael shaffer wrote:
>
When I went shopping for my paint, I was astonished that some "grays" are
>
the result of mixing several "colors" ... and I didn't want to trust the
>
paint shop for getting it exactly right. I finally did find one gray which
>
was the result of mixing a "light gray" with "black".
I don't know that mixing colors is such a bad thing. Their light gray and
black probably aren't absolutely neutral either and some color may be needed
to bring them in line. The computer controlled mixing systems that most
places use now are very repeatable. I often use painted background sweeps
in my photo studio. I have had little problem with good matches when I go
back months later and get more paint to do touch up on a custom mix that I'd
ordered earlier.
I'm in the process of doing some minor remodeling in my studio and face a
similar dilemma as Elyse. I went to Lowes last night and grabbed a handful
of gray swatches and brought them back to read with a Digital Swatchbook. A
combined error of plus or minus 2 when you look at the a and b values of LAB
is about as good as it gets with these samples. That's actually slightly
more accurate than reading the neutral values on my somewhat aged MacBeth
ColorChecker. After going through this process I came up with the same color
that I had picked by the trusty eyeball method a few years earlier. If
you're interested, card 334A (Lowe's house brand paints made by Valspar)
measured closest to true neutral... the darker tones on that card being the
closest. My advice is to simply take a ColorChecker to the paint store and
ask them to match one of the neutral swatches; or visually match some of
their stock samples yourself, preferably under the lighting of the room that
you're going to paint.
Bob Smith