[TheTownTinkerer]

has anyone used (or know of a good program) software that you can swee the colors of your choice on the interior walls before thier actually painted? i found one program "visualpainter" and messed around with thier trial sample. this could be a great "edge" above the competition. i met with a couple that i'll be doing a small job for last night, and the wife wasn't real sure of her color choice. it woud have been great to show up with a lap-top and a virtual paint program so she could get a better idea of her paint choices. im pretty good at selecting color (s) but would rather have the customer be responsible. with a program like that i think making the sale - or getting the bid would be so much easier (hope noboddy from my area see's this and decides to do the same - but im sure alot are allready way ahead of me)

 

[ProWallGuy]

I have Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer installed on my laptop. I use B. M. paints almost exclusively, so thats a plus. It cost about $18, and is fairly easy to use. I can take digital pics of a clients room, load into pc, and show them how any one of B.M.'s color would look on the walls. Its only worth doing if its a pretty big job, or if they are a hard sell.

B.M. Personal Color Viewer

 

[Hammertime]

I have Benjamin Moore's Personal Color Viewer installed on my laptop. I use B. M. paints almost exclusively, so thats a plus. It cost about $18, and is fairly easy to use. I can take digital pics of a clients room, load into pc, and show them how any one of B.M.'s color would look on the walls. Its only worth doing if its a pretty big job, or if they are a hard sell.

B.M. Personal Color Viewer

I don't know if you have Home Depot by you. But, they have a program that's cheaper that you do the same with the benjamin moore program. Only it's using, I think, Glidden colors. I don't use anything other then Ben moore either. It's the only paint I use and will guarentee. It's just so much easier to use and makes the job look that much better.

 

[Teetorbilt]

There is nothing that you can do to duplicate the lighting in a given room. The best thing is to splash the color on a wall where it will be, it should be at least 6 X 6 ft.

 

[Hammertime]

You are absolutely correct teetor. But, when you're dealing with customers or just about anyone that's unsure of certain colors and they want to experiment to get an idea of what colors they might be interested in, then I would tell them to test it out on a wall...I haven't met a customer yet that didn't pick out a few different colors expecially when i give them my paint book. They get overwhelmed and like the idea of seeing the colors from pictures. It actually amazes them seeing that on a laptop. It kinda sells the job in itself. But again, just gives people an idea of how it may look.

 

[Teetorbilt]

Hammer, I have a laptop but I don't use it for this. How it is supposed to look and how it actually looks can be miles apart. Bold colors (popular toay) you can get away with. What I call 'real colors', things that you would really like to live with.
When going with wall paint I usually look at the furniture and art going into the room. The focal point, usually a large picture determines the color selection.

 

[TheTownTinkerer]

the software i was looking at (visualpainter - can't find the link this morning) lets you choose the wall color, trim color, floor color, and seperate furniture colors. that is allways the case with lighting, theres been times a pic of a room from a catalog looks so much darker in real life. but - its purpose wouldn't be for choosing a color, just being used to give an idea of color the customer has in mind, a little edge for selling a job.

 

[ProWallGuy]

its purpose wouldn't be for choosing a color, just being used to give an idea of color the customer has in mind, a little edge for selling a job.

Yep, exactly.

 

[Teetorbilt]

Tinkerer, the reason the paint looks darker in reality is because when you are shooting a room you try to eliminate harsh shadows. This requires lots of light bounced from many angles. Seldom is a real room lit like this, in fact most rooms are only lit with a few hundred watts.

 

[premierpainting]

I think that those color imagers are a waste of money. I have the $300 Sherwin-Williams program and have never used it. B/M is cheap and gives no real results. I think honestly, if you are trying to get more work, you might want to look at your logo for a bit. It is like a French, Spanish guy swinging a brush. It would make me think that here is a less expensive paint job. Sorry for the honesty

 

[TheTownTinkerer]

thats juan valdez drinking a cup of coffee, i just made that up for somthing to put on here - it has nothing to do with my company (except that i enjoy coffee alot)

 

[PipeGuy]

thats juan valdez

one of the best marketing icons ever created! who between the ages of 35 and 65 doesn't know juan valdez? I almost spit out my drink when he showed up at Jim Carey's window in "Bruce Almighty". What a hoot!

A Juan Valdez story - In the mid 80's one of my best friends "Mike" was dating a girl whose family was fairly prominent amongst the Colombian diplomatic set in Washington. Mike was a handsome, well groomed, aspiring, young doctor and, as such, her parents were very keen on him. Her parents threw a dinner party in their daughter's honor and invited their friends from the diplomatic corps as well as their daughter's inner circle of friends (as it happens I was dating a girl on the guest list and was seated opposite Mike at dinner). After several rounds of excellent red wine the parents began a rather self-indulgent recitation of the important people they knew in Washington and in Bogota. Mike, growing annoyed at the name dropping, caught the host's eye as he raised his water glass from the table and coyly asked "You know so very many important people in your country sir, do you know Juan Valdez?".
It was truly a Saturday Night Live, spit water across the table, moment. It instantly became so quiet that you could hear every glancing blow of flatware against china; every ice cube sang as it brushed past the side of a crystal water glass.
There were two or three other guys at dinner that night who were good friends and it was all we could do not to mess ourselves when Mike dropped that bomb (I think one of them actually laughed outloud momentarily). Suffice it to say that the host did not, in the least, appreciate the humor of the moment. Neither did our dates appreciate Mike's sarcasm given that it was, to some extent, at the expense of their friend). After that night, Mike's relationship with his beautiful Colombian princess was marked for termination. The years that have passed since then have proven that Mike suffered no loss.

 

[Martin]

Here's the link you need. www.eisoftwareinc.com

Whoever paid $18.00 for the bennie moore software got ripped off...they have both versions here...they created it, and it's cheaper... my beenie Moore dealer sells it for even less. Actually they have like 18 different programs that intregrate with 18 different paint companies color decks...

I use the Pittsburgh and benjamin moore programs. In order to "use" it correctly you need to do more than just take a picture...you have to know "how" to take a picture. You need to use proper lighting etc. I won't go into that, but these programs have been very successfull for me in selling jobs where a picky homeowner can't make up thier mind. Most laptop monitors do not have the quallity to show "colors" the way a desktop monitor will. Though even when you set your monitor to "true" color...the colors do resemble the actual color deck number they are not exact and should not be used for that purpose. Use it to just give your client an "idea" of what several selected color combinations might look like in a room. If used properly it can be quite impressive. I usally print them on low gloss picture grade paper for the best results.