Color Muse for Paint Matching and More

Included with the photos of the items scanned are swatches of the Color Muse results; the photo “Exactly Right” provided an exact color match but the artificial light and the shadow on the wall distort that fact. I know that because Color Muse provides R,G,B color values and, for good measure, Hex values and they both match the touch up paint that I have for that wall. Color Muse is a pleasure to use. Calibration is quick and easy and done every time the unit is activated. Colors can be assessed from any surface and any material. Results are star rated and a long list of options together with source data and a wealth of other information is available through the excellent free app. Other tools are available including color palettes and design ideas.

I recently moved into a new home and we are doing a fair amount of remodeling. Of course, remodeling means we have to find new colors and sometimes match those colors to other things. That can be a difficult process so we were excited to try out the Color Muse device and app. The Color Muse consists of a small battery powered device which needs to be combined with an app which is available on Iphone and Android phones. Once you install the app, you power up the Color Muse device and place it on the item/color you want to match. The app quickly tells you the matches that it finds. I initially tried the paint matching portion of the app but it can also match colors for clothing, textiles, flooring, shoes, furniture, and other items. Unfortunately, before I had the opportunity to try the Color Muse for other items, my phone went for a swim in a pool and I haven’t been able to replace it yet. As for the paint matching capability, the Color Muse seems to work very well and comes very close to an exact match. After you scan a color, the app tells you the closest matches from a variety of paint manufacturers. According to the product literature, the Color Muse gives you a 90% match and I would agree with that assessment. I think this is an impressive piece of technology and I look forward to getting a new phone and trying out the app for other purposes besides paint.

Amazing, will change the way you pick colors. Disclaimer, touching up paint is really hard, often you need to paint the entire wall even if you have the original paint can. Paint fades and oxidizes over time. No more having to bring chips to the paint store. This tool can do accurate scans right in your home. Frustrated when you actually paint a room, it doesn't turn out the way it looks in the magazine or paint sample... take the color muse when you visit friends or open houses. Capture the paint colors in actual rooms. The app can filter by manufacture and suggest the most likely color names. If you find a color pallet you like in an expensive paint, you can use the color muse to suggest colors in cheaper brands. I tested the Color Muse in my home against a list of known colors. Here is how it did: Decatur Buff - 2nd most likely match Bittersweet Brown - 4th most likely match Playful Pink - Exact match Ladybug Red - Exact match Light Blue - 2nd most likely match Cloud white - 9th most likely match Goldtone - 9th most likely match Wales green - exact match Hawthorne Yellow - exact match

This tool is not always perfect but for the price, it is very handy to have for interior design. It is pretty much the color scanner they have at the paint store, just you can fit it in your pocket/purse. It matches paint from cans from A LOT of vendors. Out of 5 known paints in my house, it nailed 3 perfectly and got close with the other two. It does not match spray paint. It can also 'match' countertops, cabinets, make-up, clothing, tile, and more from a lot of vendors. I found it only works very well with paint though. It is especially bad with tile. However, it will get close matches if you want a similar tile, countertop, etc. or just a design that goes with what you are matching. The device is very easy to use and set-up, I had it up and running in no time. Generally, you hold it directly against the surface to match but you can pull it a little further away for surfaces with a pattern like tile or countertops. Once on, you just press scan on the app and it quickly goes to work. App is a wiz to use and user-friendly. You can save samples into well-organized palettes so you dont have to scan again. App also saves a scan history. App and device can compare a scan and samples as well. The device can be charged with a USB plug, like the one you probably have on your phone.

Best portable way to match colors by far! Should be a tool everyone who deals with paint, fabric, etc has. Matching or coordinating existing colors in a home can be a big pain but this makes it easier. Over the years I've tried different apps on my phone to try and match colors and I have always been disappointed. Even with the apps from the paint manufacturer of one of my preferred paint brands. The problem is the room lighting, camera exposure and all that can interfere with the color the camera captures. Even taking a picture of the sample chips doesn't produce repeatable results. With the color muse, I have a device that's about the size of a roll of film that easily fits in my pocket. It calibrates itself with the reference card on the cap every time it's turned on. It has it's own light source and it blocks out all other light. It's able to get very accurate color reproductions. I always wished I had kept track of the different paints I used in my home in case I needed to touch up paint but forgot to write it down. I knew the manufacturer and in some cases the color family but that was about it. With the color muse I was able to go to various rooms and in a few seconds know what color I used. This is useful information if I want to touch up any damage or find coordinating colors or fabrics. The color isn't a 100% match but it was close enough that I could select which color I used after filtering for paint by a specific manufacturer. For paint where you don't have any information you can get a close enough match where if you paint the entire wall it should look pretty good compared to other walls in the room. If you can't find a matching color it does give the color values (default is d50 Lab but d65 Lab, RGB, HSB and LCH are also options) which might help if you can print out those colors accurately and have it sampled. A close match shouldn't be hard to find though as there are 39 paint vendors included to sample against. It's not just for paint. Building Material, Clothing, Countertops & Cabinets. Flooring, Furniture & Decor, Inspirations, Makeup, Plastic, Reference, Shoes, Textiles & Leather, Tile and Wallcoverings are other categories you can color match with plenty of vendors in each category. The app took some getting used to and I think there's a lot of room for improvement but it's usable. The workflow could be improved and there is an issue where colors you save to collections aren't saved right away. Not sure if it's a delay with syncing with the server or what but it confused me at first. Also it would be nice if you could save the actual sampled color instead of just the matched color. You also can't match small swatches of color. For example if you have a small accent color in a design like fabric or wallpaper, it may not get a good sample. The sample will need to be at least as big as a dime. I ran into this problem when trying to take a sample from a blue stripe in wallpaper I was hoping to match. Still, this is the best way to get accurate color samples and match it to existing products such as paint, fabrics, furniture and more.

This is a fantastic little gadget that does so much more than paint matching! The app opens up a wealth of other design options such as tile, flooring and fabrics that can be matched to the color shade being scanned. It is a really great tool for coming up with interior design/decorating ideas. We aren’t all interior designers and this little device is great for coming up with a range of finishes from an initial color scanned from paint, fabric, flooring or a tiled surface. It is great at starting the creative process so you can narrow down what you do and don’t want. The scans can be saved into a ‘palette’ which can be saved on the online Color Muse account and then shared with others. Set up is pretty easy. The Color Muse comes with a USB charging cable and the accompanying app can be downloaded from the Google Play or Apple store. Once downloaded, you link the app to the Color Muse via Bluetooth and set up an account that can be used for sharing the scans and color palettes that you have created. A tutorial on the vendor's website would be a useful addition to cut down on the amount of trial and error needed to understand the extent of the feature set. I tried it on three different paint samples, two indoor and one exterior and it nailed it all three times. It correctly identified the ‘Sparkling Brook’ Behr pain in our bathroom (painted about 4 years ago), the Sherwin Williams ‘Chivalry Copper’ paint in our living room (painted about 10 years ago) and the exterior Dunn & Edwards paint on a home that is being remodeled. When you have scanned a shade, you can change the paint vendor (Behr, Sherwin Williams, Dunn & Edwards etc.) so you can get the closest match based on the store you want to buy the paint from. The database of colors is such that it will even display the underlying pigment codes for an exact color match if you are using paint from a different vendor. The other useful aspect is that it will help match faded paint. We had an exterior stucco color to match after installing some windows and we were able to get a match to the weathered shading as opposed to using the original color that it was painted with and finding it was a slightly different shade due to sun fading. I showed the Color Muse to a friend of mine who is a painter by trade and he was so impressed that he took a picture of it so he could buy one from the Home Depot website. He couldn’t believe how simple it was to scan the color, select the paint vendor and see the shade immediately whereas previously he has had to take samples of the paint he is trying to match to the paint store. He also couldn’t believe how inexpensive it was. With a paint or any other type of finish scanned (fabric, flooring etc.) you can then use the app to select different types of material and the app will display a decent selection of options for accompanying finishes from different manufacturers. For instance if you scan the wall paint and want a similarly colored fabric for curtains or throw pillows, you can do that with the Color Muse. You can even scan a color and then view a series of interior design images such as Urban, Country, Rustic etc. using the color tone you have scanned.

This is an invaluable little tool for matching paint colors. Place it against any surface and it will bring up a whole palette of matching colors from various name brands. It sure beats taking a sample to the paint store for a computer match. You can use it to match anything- paint, flooring, countertops, furniture etc. It brought up the exact Behr paint colors I actually used on some of my walls that I painted years ago. It will also give you ideas for whole rooms using complimentary colors. It's a great investment if you paint a lot.

I work at an architecture firm where we are always matching paint colors,fabrics, siding, etc. I was very excited to see a product like this come to market. Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed with it, but it does have its uses. I attempted to Identify the paint colors in my home and it didn't even have the color listed under close matches. I then specified that it was a behr paint color and still, the correct color did not show up. I tried this with about 7 colors that I have in my house and it did not show 1 correct color in the list of close matches it gives you. While it wasn't able to find the exact paint color (the color is a current behr color btw, painted about 6 months ago) it does come up with a lot of somewhat close matches that you could use in place of a color. I would reccomend it if you are trying to find products to match certain colors in your home however. The search by colors made it easy to find all sorts of products by category and color. It came up with some great matches to everything I scanned. It would also be great for an artist who wants to create color palletes from existing objects.