b'left: Whether youre trying to specify a paint colour that will match a digital colour value, printed branding materials or a physical sample, Resenes website offers a number of free tools that can help you find the nearest Resene paint colour match for your project. Background painted in Resene New Day with A4 drawdown paint swatches (from left to right) in Resene Epic, Resene Island Time and Resene Skylight and testpots (clockwise from top left) in Resene Paua, Resene White Noise, Resene Aquarius, Resene Why understanding the differenceJet Stream and Resene Curious Blue. Project by between physical and digital ReseneAmber Armitage, image by Wendy Fenwick.colour samples is integral to your design. Resene ReseneWhite Noise AquariusT heres a common conundrum that many designers, builders,and given that human brains struggle with remembering numbersResene ReseneJet Stream Curious Bluepainters and others who need to specify and use paint are faced with. Perhaps youve found an eye-catching colour online thats inspired your decorating palette or maybe you have aeach hue in the Resene Total Colour System. This shift improved client who wants a painted part of their project to perfectly matchgreater than seven digits, HEX colours codes can be easier tothe accuracy of Resenes digital colours because it means Resene their brand colours and now youre unsure how to translate thatrecall and communicate. starts with the largest colour space then converts it to smaller colour colour from the digital world to the physical space youre workingCMYKstandsforCyan,Magenta,Yellow,Blackandisspaces like RGB, HEX and CMYK using a mathematical equation. on. Those who are familiar with popular design software can likelyoften used by printers and graphic designers to print things likeRGB and CMYK colour spaces specify a colour by telling a figure out a colours RGB or HEX value, which can be a greatartwork, magazines and marketing materials. Whether you aredevice how much of each colour is needed. LAB, on the other place to start when youre in the initial stages of design. Whileviewing a digital representation of CMYK, the computer is tryinghand, is a more accurate colour space because it works more like electronic colours are a superb way to visualise your projectsto emulate what a sample might look like after it comes off of athe human eye and specifies colours using a three-axis system: the colour scheme prior to painting, its important to understandprinting press. Like paint, CMYK is a subtractive colour model,a-axis (green to red), b-axis (blue to yellow) and lightness axis. The that they are not substitutes for physical colours as they arehowever, it uses a combination of four layers of coloured ink tobest thing about LAB is that its easier to achieve the same colour fundamentally different. achieve a hue (which is also known as four-colour process). across different media, which is why its often the colour space of Due to these different colour systems and their limitations,choice for the plastics, automotive and textile industries.How digital colours differ from physical colours some paint colours can be portrayed on screens more accurately Mixing paint colours is called subtractive colour, as the colourthan others. Despite monumental technological improvements in you see is the colour that the paint does not absorb. For example,screen technology, there are still limitations in the range of coloursAdditive and subtractive colour combinationsyellow paint appears yellow because it absorbs all colour wavesthat can be shown in the RGB colour space. This means that someYellow Redexcept yellow. Mixing light-emitting colours, such as RGB values,Resene paint colours do not convert as well as others because they uses the principle of additive colour. Light-emitting devices suchare out of gamut of the RGB colour space. These differences are as computer monitors, smart phones or television screens givenot faults in the conversion or software, simply limitations between out colour, so even if the room youre in is completely dark, youadditive colour spaces when compared with subtractive colours. Red Green Yellow Magentacan still turn them on and see colour. RGB is an acronym for Red,Where Resenes base colour values come fromGreen, Blue, which are the three colours that get layered with white light to create the different hues you perceive on a screen. Previously, Resenes RGB values were measured from dry painted AHEXcolourisexpressedasasix-digitcombinationofcoloursamplesusingsophisticatedelectroniccolourscanningBlue Cyannumbers and letters that are defined by the hues mix of red,equipment. These RGB values were then converted to LAB and green and blueso HEX colour codes are simply shorthand forCMYK. But today, Resene derives LAB values from colour masterCyan Magenta Green Bluean RGB colour. Since RGB colours can have up to nine digitspaint samples to come up with the base colour value to representAdditive (light) Subtractive (paint)62 blackwhitemag.com'