Getting a Paint Colour From a Picture

We have all seen a fantastic looking wall or cabinet colour at some point in picture. But trying to match from that picture to an actual paint sample is incredibly hard. The colour swatches inside of paint stores are so small, and it can be hard to visualize what the finished product will look like. I know we have painted entire rooms and then redone them because the colour was just not what we had wanted. But this kitchen project, it worked out right the first time through this method! Read through, find out how, and get the complete finishes list in the last step!

It turns out that you can do a lot of the matching more accurately online then by just trying to visualize in store. We will use several free online tools. I already know exactly which colour I painted these, so let's see how accurately we can match that online…

We saw these awesome blue cabinets from a kitchen designed by Heidi Piron. Many of you saw the same ones on your Pinterest feeds. But all these designers are running businesses, and the exact colour they pick is often a trade secret so that their looks cannot be easily duplicated. In the case of these cabinets, there was no information on the actual cabinets colour. But close examination, particularly of the one picture that had a close up of the finish, show that these are a blue base with a black glaze over top. My goal was to match the underlying blue.

Here are the basic steps We will use.

1.     Select the most accurate picture.

2.     Find our colour in RGB format.

3.     Convert that RGB format to a paint colour.

Once you have all that done, you can try your selected colour, (or an equivalent) in one of the colour visualizer's.

Before we try to find a paint colour, we need the most accurate picture we can find. Any filtering or weird tones will throw off our selection. What you want to avoid is any pictures that are off colour. This could be due to filtering, artificial lighting, or overly bright spots. What I have are several pictures of my kitchen cabinets, throughout the process and in various lighting. We will use these and see how close of a match we can get to the colour I actually used.

1.     Picture 1 shows a closeup of the peninsula counter and floor. The cabinets look really pretty, but it is taken at night under full artificial lighting and is way too dark.

2.     Picture 2 is getting better. It is taken in daylight, but on an overcast day. It is clear, but it is still mostly under artificial light.

3.     Picture 3 shows the kitchen in full natural sunlight. This is what I want. The blue is a bit saturated in the sunlight, but it is at least clear.

I tried several different colour pickers, but the best one I found was www.imagecolourpicker.com Not only does it give you the colour you are looking for, but it also gives you a complimentary palette you can use to help select trims or accents.

Use the crosshairs to select the point you are looking for. Inside of this picture, since I'm looking for the underlying blue, I want to find a place that is fairly clear and an area that has not been darkened by the glaze, or overly brightened by the sunlight. The inside panels of the righthand corner door look really good for this.  I will select from there.

Once you are hovering over top of the colour you want, click once to select it. The colour will be stored as a hexidecimal and RGB code. (Note that the upper box shows the last colour you selected, and the lower box shows the colour that you are currently over. It looks like each swatch corresponds to the data line they are next to, but the hex and RGB are both from the top selected colour not from the dynamic pointer colour.)

Although you can work with the hexadecimal value as well, we will work with the RGB. RGB is broken down into three sections: the amount of Red, Green, and Blue.  Each of these has a value from 0 through 255, indicating the amount of that colour contained in the overall blend. (Although a scale of zero through 255 seems a bit odd, it is all built off the binary numbering system and the amount of data that can be stored in a single byte. You will see this scale used all over the place when dealing with digital systems.)

Like the colour pickers, I looked through several paint matchers until I found one that I liked. It is at www.easyrgb.com.  Take our value of (78, 187,218) and put it into the corresponding boxes. You can select from all colours, or you can select from a specific manufacturer. I chose Sherwin-Williams, as that was close to my place.

It will generate a wide variety of colour samples. Although the actual colour we bought and used did not show up in here, a lot of similar colours did. And, a lot of these colours in here also showed up on the original sample that I did from the Heidi Piron kitchen I was trying to imitate!  That is really cool, as it means that my actual finished colour selection is very close to her colour.

Since we are using Sherwin-Williams products, I went to their website and used the colour matching software they have to see how close they are. I entered the colour for the closest match to our selection here (6787 Fountain), as well as I entered the actual colour that I bought (6774 Freshwater.) 

In the colour match, I painted the wall above the fireplace with the 6774, and the rest of the room walls with the 6787. Overall, they are very close considering that we have just been working in a loop, taking a colour(6774) from a picture, converting to RGB, and then to a paint colour we can buy at the store (6787). Particularly in a case like this where the cabinets have a glaze over top of them, if you were to paint your cabinets the 6787 and send me a picture, it would look almost identical to mine done in the 6774.

This Instructable is all about the color selection. I have another about how I setup to do the spraying here.  But I know that there will be some questions about the process. I'm doing these for a lifetime finish, and it is intensive. Since I want this to last, I bought expensive and hard-drying finishes. So short form, here is the process and finishes:

Preparation:

1.     Wash all doors with water and Dawn detergent and a cloth.

2.     Degrease all doors with Tri-Sodium-Phosphate using Scotch-brite pads to scour out all cracks.

3.     Sponge off with water and let dry.

4.     Sand all doors and molding detail.

5.     Clean thoroughly with compressed air.

6.     Wipe with Tack Cloth.

Paint and Finishes:

7.     Two coats of Bonding Primer to lock in the Oak tannins. (https://www.cloverdalepaint.com/prime-solution )

8.     Two coats of Blue as the base. (Sherwin Williams Emerald https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/emerald-interior-acrylic-latex-paint in “6774-Freshwater semi-gloss”)  

9.     One coat of Glaze (Sherwin Williams Faux impressions (https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/faux-impressions-latex-glaze ) mixed 1.5 to 1 with Sherwin Williams Duration Home (https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/products/duration-home-interior-acrylic-latex) in matte “Tricorn Black”)

10.  Three coats of Clearcoat to seal it all in.  (Varathane Diamond coat floor finish https://www.rustoleum.ca/product-catalog/consumer-brands/varathane/water-based-clear-finishes/diamond-wood-finish-floors  in satin)

Glaze was hand applied and I used an edging pad to wipe it off. It was tricky as it goes off fast and you can only do small sections at a time. It is also fairly light duty until sealed and you must be careful on the topcoating. If brushing clearcoat instead of spraying, go very lightly on your first clearcoat so you don’t wipe it off.

I did a sample piece as well with all of the coats to test the durability of the finish afterwards.  Overall, this should be hard wearing.

·       When wiped with harsh cleaners and solvents, even acetone itself, none of the finish discolored or lifted.

·       I kept it directly in the heavy in the steam above the kettle for 10 minutes, and the finishes were stable as well. 

·       I left water on the surface for an hour, and the finishes stayed stable.

Here are some last pictures of the kitchen overall and in detail. It was a lot of work, but we are very happy with the overall results. Good luck on your project!