Color Matching via Android App. that spits out Hobby Store paints

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Is there such a thing as an Android App where I can point my phone at any color sample and it will spit out the best matches in Hobby store paints like Tamiya, Humbrol, etc?

I’ve found a color picker app but it spits out hex RGB codes. I’d like to go one step further and have it spit out closest paint matches found in hobby stores.

2

I have been playing with one called Model Paints on my iPhone. You can use the phone camera or an existing photo and get paint matches. The paint manufacturer data base is fairly extensive. I have been playing with the free version. The paid version is 2.99/yr and unlocks a few features. I can’t vouch for final paint results accuracy but it’s a fairly impressive little app. I suspect an Android version is availabl.

3

One thing you can do if you have a scanner with your computer and a decent graphics program is to scan a sample or photograph with the color. Most graphics programs will show you the RGB or various other analyses. These can be used to determine how close a color is.

4

[quote user=“missileman2000”]

One thing you can do if you have a scanner with your computer and a decent graphics program is to scan a sample or photograph with the color. Most graphics programs will show you the RGB or various other analyses. These can be used to determine how close a color is.

Thanks for the advice, that’s a clever way to compare paint samples for accuracy.

5

Check out hobby color converter app. It can even track which colors you already have etc.

6

To quote a classic:

Is that trip really necessary?

On one hand the equipment itself introduces a lot of error, like is your camera calibrated? and what’s the lighting like? On the other side you got the 1:1 colors being altered by fading, dust, mixing with funny things like diesel fuel or paint leftovers and so on. Then you got this nice effect I’ve seen some time ago that a paint is a perfect match in the natural lighting but not anymore in artificial lighting.

In the end I’d personally vouch for looking at different paints and experimenting and mixing - as opposed to looking for the best phone app as this seems to me a lot like a waste of time. But of course this ist just my opinion - good luck with your painting and have a nice day

Paweł