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PAINT LAB

Colour tools built for miniature painters

Paint Lab transforms independently measured paint data into practical tools for finding, comparing and working with miniature paints.


Instead of relying on manufacturer colour charts, approximate screen colours or subjective comparisons, Paint Lab uses the colour data produced by The Chroma Institute to help painters understand how paints relate to one another — across manufacturers, ranges and colour systems.

Explore Paint Lab

FIND THE COLOUR YOU'RE LOOKING FOR

Search by colour, not just by name

Paint names are useful for identifying products, but they do not provide a consistent way of comparing colour across different manufacturers. Paint Lab allows colours to be searched and compared using measured colour data.


Start with a paint, a colour value or a selected colour and find paints that occupy the closest positions in perceptual colour space. 


This makes it possible to ask questions such as: 


What paint is closest to this colour?

What alternatives are available from another manufacturer?

How similar are these two paints?

Which paint best matches the colour I actually need?

COMPARE PAINTS ACROSS MANUFACTURERS

One colour space. Multiple paint ranges.

Every manufacturer develops and names its colours differently. Paint Lab provides a common framework through which those paints can be compared. 


Measured paints from different manufacturers can be positioned within the same perceptual colour space, allowing genuinely similar colours to be identified regardless of brand or product naming. That means painters can explore alternatives without being restricted to a single manufacturer's colour system.

BUILD COLOUR RELATIONSHIPS

From individual paints to complete colour schemes

Paint Lab does more than find similar colours. Because paints are represented mathematically within perceptual colour space, Paint Lab can calculate colour relationships and then identify real paints that most closely correspond to those colours.


Painters can explore: 

  • Tints, shades and chromatic scales  
  • Complementary and split-complementary colours  
  • Analogous colour relationships  
  • Triadic colour schemes  
  • Square and rectangular tetrads


The result is colour theory translated into actual paints you can put on a miniature.

PLAN COLOUR TRANSITIONS

Build highlights, shadows and colour progressions

Paint Lab can calculate a structured colour path between two paints and identify the closest measured paint at each stage of that transition.  This can help painters plan highlight and shadow sequences, explore changes in hue or chroma, and build controlled transitions between different colours.

 

Instead of choosing intermediate paints by eye alone, painters can see how those paints relate within perceptual colour space.

Exploring measured paint colours in OKLab colour space. The animation follows a linear colour path from Gal Vorbak Red to Moot Green, identifying the nearest measured paint at 10% intervals.

EXPLORE PAINT COLOUR SPACE

See where paints actually sit

Paint Lab allows paint collections to be explored visually within OKLab and OKLCH colour space. Rather than treating a paint catalogue as a list of names and swatches, painters can see the relationships between colours: their lightness, chroma, hue and distance from neighbouring paints. This can reveal clusters, gaps and alternatives that are difficult to identify from conventional colour charts.

BUILD A PAINT COLLECTION AROUND YOU

Your paints. Your manufacturers. Your choices.

Not every painter owns the same paints.


Paint Lab is being designed to allow painters to work with the paints and manufacturers relevant to them, helping identify useful colours from within their own collection as well as alternatives they may want to add. 


As the Paint Lab database grows, independently measured paints from participating manufacturers can be incorporated into the same colour system.

FROM A COLOUR TO A PAINT

Find paints from the colours around you

Colours can come from anywhere: artwork, photography, historical references, concept art or the world around us. Paint Lab is being developed to help translate those colours into usable paint information, allowing colours selected from digital sources to be compared with measured paints in the database.


Because a displayed colour and a physical paint are not the same thing, Paint Lab treats this as a colour-matching tool rather than a claim of exact physical reproduction.

BUILT ON MEASURED DATA

The science behind Paint Lab

Paint Lab is built around the independently measured paint data and colour methodology developed by The Chroma Institute.


Physical paint samples are measured under controlled conditions and represented using perceptual colour data, creating a common numerical framework for comparing paints across manufacturers. 

Learn about the science

PAINT LAB IS GROWING

Help shape what comes next

Paint Lab is under active development. Its paint database, tools and manufacturer coverage will continue to expand as additional paints are independently measured and new functionality is introduced. For development updates, early access information and opportunities to contribute to Paint Lab research: 

Visit Paint-Lab.app

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