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Can I preview a wall colour before I paint?

Yes — but only as a hint. A digital colour preview shows you the shape and spread of the colour in the room. The exact shade, the sheen and how the light plays on the wall you can only see once paint is on the actual wall.

Why a colour preview on screen is not the whole truth

A screen — phone, tablet or computer — shows colour as light, not as pigment. Your screen has its own colour calibration, its own brightness, and its own balance between red, green and blue. Two different phones can show the same colour code markedly differently, and neither shows precisely how the paint looks when sunlight or a lamp hits it.

That is why a digital colour preview is best at what it can actually do: show you the spread — how much wall gets coloured, how the colour meets the ceiling, skirting and window frames, and whether a dark colour makes the room feel smaller or more intimate. The exact shade is a different task.

The three ways you can trial a colour

• A physical test patch. A paint sample or a swatch of test paint on the actual wall, seen in the room's own light in the morning, midday and evening. Still the most reliable method, because it is the real paint on the real surface.
• Photo- or AR-based colouring. You take a picture of the room, and an app colours the walls digitally based on the image's edges. Quick and good for comparing several colours side by side, but tied to the light the photo was taken in.
• 3D model or walkthrough. The colour is applied to a model of the room you can move around in. The advantage is that you see the colour from several angles and in context with the rest of the home — not just one photo.

How do you trial colours in a room so it actually helps?

Whichever method you use, the same rules of thumb apply:

• Test in the room's own light, not the showroom's. A north-facing room and a south-facing room make the same colour markedly different.
• Look at it at several times of day. A colour that looks calm at ten in the morning can turn into something quite different under the evening's electric light.
• Compare it with what stays. Floor, ceiling, door frames and skirting rarely change — the colour needs to work with them, not just look good on its own.
• Trial a large area, not a small patch. An A4 sheet of colour on the wall lies about how a whole surface feels. The larger the sample, the more reliable the judgement.

Does the colour carry over to a floor plan?

That depends entirely on the tool. Most digital colour previews live only in the one photo or the one 3D view you created it in — move to another part of the app, and the colour is gone again. Some tools instead save the colour as a property of the wall or room itself, so it follows everywhere: in the floor plan, in the 3D model and in any walkthrough. That is a difference worth knowing if you want to use the colour preview for more than a quick look — for example, to show a contractor or a partner what you have in mind.

Why do two apps show the same colour code differently?

A colour code such as a hex value or an RGB combination describes light on a screen, not pigment in a tin of paint. Two apps can interpret the same code differently, depending on how they handle the screen's colour space, the lighting in the 3D model the colour sits on, and how much shadow and reflection is layered on top of the surface. That is part of why a colour you found in one app can look different when you open the same code in another. Paint retailers therefore work with their own fan decks and code systems — and those are what you should use when you order the actual tin, not a screen colour alone.

When is a digital preview good enough — and when do you need a physical one?

• Good enough for choosing direction. If you just need to decide whether the living room should be light or dark, warm or cool, a digital preview is fine. It shows the spread and the mood quickly, without you having to open a single tin of paint.
• Not good enough for the final shade. If you need to choose between two nearly identical greys, or the colour has to match something specific — a piece of furniture, a floor, a neighbouring flat — a physical sample is necessary. The difference between two shades that look alike on screen can be obvious on the wall.
• Use both, in that order. Digital preview to narrow the field from ten colours to three. Physical sample to choose the one that stays on the wall for years.

What a digital colour preview cannot do

It cannot show sheen and texture. Matte, eggshell and semi-gloss paint reflect light very differently, and it is precisely that reflection that decides how a colour is experienced in a room with changing light. Nor can it show how the colour looks over an existing, uneven or dark wall — digital views typically assume a smooth, white starting surface. And it cannot tell you how many coats of paint are needed, or whether the wall needs filling and priming first. Those are questions a physical sample and a chat with a painter answer better.

What HouseSense does

In HouseSense you can give a wall colour while standing in front of it in the 3D walkthrough — a long press on the wall, and the colour is there instantly. Because the colour is saved as a property of the wall itself, it automatically carries over to the floor plan and the 3D model, whichever of the three views you open afterwards. That makes it easy to compare several colours in the same room and see them from several angles — but the screen's rendering of the shade is still only a hint, not the final word.

How to land on the right shade in the end

1. Use the digital colour preview to narrow the field — find two or three colours that work with the rest of the room.
2. Buy sample paint in the colours you are most torn between, and paint a large area — at least 50×50 cm — directly on the wall.
3. Look at the test patch in the morning, at midday and in the evening, in both daylight and electric light.
4. Make the final decision from the test patch, not from the screen.