Precise Painting
When you’re planning to paint your home you’ll soon discover just how baffling your options are. There are countless colors available, each offering an array of different tones and shades that themselves combine with every other color in endless ways, and it can be easy to become lost in a sea of paint swatches.
But hey, welcome to the future. We no longer have to rely on guesswork to pick out our paint colors, and we don’t have to wait until the final coat is drying on the wall before learning that the walls clash with the carpet. Here are just a few ways it’s become easier to choose paint colors in recent years.
The Sherwin Williams Visualizer
There are dozens of paint visualizers available online to help you select the perfect combination of colors, but the Sherwin Williams visualizer may one of the best.
All you have to do is take a well-lit picture of the room you’d like to paint (or the exterior of your house), upload it to the site, and select the areas you’d like to paint. You can then choose any colors from the Sherwin Williams range and digitally superimpose them on your photo.
Not only can this app give you a great idea of how your finished paint job will look, but the visualizer will also make recommendations for complimentary tones, helping you match your furnishings to your base color and the trim to everything else.
Color Snap
If you have an iPhone or Android phone you can even pick out paint colors on the go. Color Snap is an app that allows you to take pictures of your home, select any color present in the photo and ask for recommendations of coordinating colors.
The app is ideal for selecting paint colors to match your existing furniture. If, for instance, you have a rug that pulls a room together, you can simply select the color of the rug and instantly receive recommendations for the best paint colors to match it.
Color Expert
Color Expert
There are few things more frustrating when choosing paint colors than seeing the perfect color out in the real world, then heading to the hardware store and finding yourself unable to remember the exact shade and tone.
Color Expert solves that problem. This iOS and Android app works with your camera to match real world colors to the Pantone Goe System, the industry standard for color reproduction with a database of over 2,000 colors.
Using Color Expert is as easy as snapping a photo of anything at all, highlighting the color you like, and asking the app to identify the exact tone from the Pantone database. From that you’ll be able to find the perfect match from any paint range.
The Old Fashioned Way
Even with the help of these great tools it’s always best to see examples in real life before settling on a color scheme. Painting contractors, such as us, can help you work with these apps to pick out a range of color options, and then provide sample swatches to give you a better idea of how the colors will look in real life.
Any good contractor will be happy to offer dozens of samples to help you pick out the perfect combination of colors, and their expert opinions will always be more reliable than an online app.
When we”™re asked to be part of the process, we”™ll get three to four different colors, then choose three to four shades of those colors, which we put up in 1 ft. squares. We”™ve placed upwards of 30 samples of paint in our clients”™ homes to help them get the combination of colors they like.http://www.code-line.com/software/colorexpert/
Bonus Tip
Finally, even if you use a color selection app and think you’ve found the perfect combination of colors, it’s essential to paint the base color first before painting the trim.
Online apps are ideal for visualizing small areas (such as your rooms, or a porch), but they don’t perform so well using pictures of an entire house. Once the base color has been painted you’ll be in a much better position to select the perfect complimentary trim color.
If you”™re overwhelmed by choosing colors, or just not sure how to begin this painting process, give us a call and we”™ll take care of it for you!