Hi PaintingFool - Thank you for your review. I'm sorry to hear that the single gallon cans you purchased are lighter than the 5-gallon buckets! I recommend checking to see if the color was mixed correctly by comparing the paper swatch to the dried paint dab on your paint cans. If they match, the color is correct, and we recommend bringing in a sample of the color from your 5-gallon buckets so it can be computer color matched at the store. For further assistance with this, please feel free to reach out to us directly. We'd be happy to help make this right. - Sara