Best Of Simple color matching process and image files of color charts attached

[Lemosteam]

Hello all,

For a research project I decided to create color chart image .png files (attached) in MS Paint (I will describe later why) of various acrylic paint manufacturers, including Vallejo, old Polly Scale, Tru-Color, Tamiya, Testors (includes Model Masters), Golden, RAL (never heard of these) Revell, Humbrol, and most importantly IMHO, the Federal Standard Color Database.

These colors were snipped from a datatbase at the following location (this site is interesting in itself!):
http://scalemodeldb.com/paintcharts/federalstandard(now defunct)

This new link may help: http://www.shapeshift.bg/paintconversionlinks.html

The Federal Color Standard Database can be found here (still good):
http://www.fed-std-595.com/FS-595-Paint-Spec.html

The reason I created these in MS Paint is because one can copy/paste from there to another MS Paint file with a transparent background selection (white in MS Paint) to overlay an image color you are trying to match.

Each file has one or more white stripes through the various color swatches in each file to help in the overlay, essentially you want the color to disappear when overlaying onto the color you are trying to match.

Steps:
1) Open desired image of the color you are trying to match in MS Paint
2) Open a the .png file of a given brand in MS Paint
3) Make sure "Transparent Selection" is checked in the Select pull-down)
4) Window-select all or a portion of the chosen swatch and select Copy
4) Go to your original image and paste the selection
5) Move the pasted image around on your color and look to see how close you can get- again the goal is to maker the pasted color disappear into your desired color.

There may be other ways to do this, but I am not versed in those applications, I use MS Paint every day.

You may never get a perfect match, but you may come very close.

Here is an example, my best match is difficult to see down at the bottom right of the siding on the building:


NOTE: this DOES NOT resolve actual paint color issues from the bottle.

I found this very helpful in my project to at least make an educated guess about a color before buying hundreds of paint bottles, and thought it might be helpful to folks here too.
 

[chicken45]

"Best of" and "sticky" this goldmine!

[Lemosteam]

Whoa, Christmas Surprise?

If anyone has a favorite line of acrylic Craft paint or another hobby paint brand that they a file created, just PM me.  It really does not take too long to make

[Lemosteam]

Added Krylon, Rustoleum, American Accents and Plasti-Kote:

[craigolio1]

This is incredible.

If you can't find a match on the chart, would it be possible to lay two colours over a photo and have them combine to appropriately match the photo?

Craig

[Lemosteam]

@craigolio1 ,

Nah, this is pretty much static, but you can use any color swatch from anywhere. Helpful if the swatch states the RGB or other color code in case you have to get something mixed.

[PRR1950]

John,

None of your attachments can be found any more.  Has your attachment server gone down or have the link locations changed?

Chuck

[Lemosteam]

@tom mann ,

What is my best course of action here?

Wondering if I should create a google album, store the full res images there (to avoid any resolution reduction here) and open the album to full public?

@PRR1950 , may take a little while to do.

[tom mann]

Upload them to the gallery here.

[PRR1950]

I would really like to see the .jpg files originally attached to this post.  Will someone please ask Lemosteam to provide them again from a different location?

[chicken45]

Paging @Lemosteam !

[peteski]

Upload them to the gallery here.

And also create a new category (aka. "album")  in your gallery (and then sub categories if you want to organize the lower levels), and put them your photos in there. That way they are all grouped and easy to locate later on, instead of being randomly placed in the giant TRW photo repository. 


If you would like an example, check out how I sort my photos.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?action=gallery;su=user;u=2700

[Lemosteam]

Not happening for a while.  I have to recreate every file above.  Took me weeks the first time, and I'll organize the images any way I want just to pi$$ @chicken45 off.   

[chicken45]

Not happening for a while.  I have to recreate every file above.  Took me weeks the first time, and I'll organize the images any way I want just to pi$$ @chicken45 off.   

Hey man, I'm not the one making the request here. But why do you have to recreate all the files? Did you lose them?

[Lemosteam]

Hey man, I'm not the one making the request here. But why do you have to recreate all the files? Did you lose them?

Not sure yet- thought they were on my laptop, but maybe I have them on my workstation or a drive somewhere.  And I did not realize it was our very own 20,000+ post-boy  that mentioned the album organization- thought it was you for some reason.