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Where can I find computer readable RGB values, or equivalents, for brand name paints such as Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams, and Behr paints?

[Edit] My interest was not so much about the specific color model of RGB, I basically needed some kind of quantitative description of available paint colors of big name brands. If RGB is not scientifically appropriate, whatever quantitative description is OK.

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Under what kind of lighting? Even if you find two paints from different brands with the exact same RGB under one kind of light, they could be different from each other under another kind of light. This is because there's a whole spectrum to consider, and RGB is just a perspective. –  Skaperen Jan 10 '12 at 0:02
I ran across perbang.dk/rgb some time ago; it might be useful. –  Niall C. Jan 10 '12 at 5:30
We'd need more info to really be able to understand the intent of the question. What do you mean 'quantifiable description'? Are you just looking for a count? –  DA01 Aug 26 '13 at 17:06

4 Answers 4

up vote 5 down vote accepted

If your looking for the RGB equivalent of a paint swatch, your probably better off looking at Pantone colors.


You can buy Pantone swatches (I think their pretty expensive though) and then use Photoshop or something to find the equivalent RGB value.

If you go into Photoshop and click on the Color Picker in the toolbar, theres a Color Libraries button that'll show you a great many Pantone colors. Click the one that matches the printed swatch and when you go back to the color picker, you'll see the RGB value.

As wikipedia says, Pantone is pretty much an industry standard, used in painting, printing, etc...

I'm sure you can in turn give a Sherwin Williams or whoever and Pantone color code and have them mix paint for you (if thats what you want).

If you want to take photos of the room you want to paint, photoshop it with the color you want from a swatch, some of the websites (we used sherwin williams) have tools to do that also, but won't produce Pantone or RGB values :(


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You can't. RGB is sufficient to describe the colors to be put out by a monitor, but it is not sufficient to describe the reflectivity of a surface.

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Monitors are additive (rgb), Pigments are subtractive (CMYK, Spot) –  Fiasco Labs Aug 26 '13 at 16:52

This will get it as close as you probably need.


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Well, we need more info. Are you asking for the 'number of colors offered'? If so, then just call them up.

As for RGB values, RGB is a way to measure projected light--NOT reflected light. RGB is for screens (which create colors via mixing Red, Green and Blue projected light).

Paint is reflected colors. And is much different color space. The range of projected RGB colors overlaps the range of reflective colors, but they don't exactly match. In other words, there are colors that can be rendered via RGB that can't via paint and vice versa.

Pantone, as mentioned, is a good way to 'match' colors with a very particular description, but note that Pantone is typically a print color standard...for printing inks on paper. And their numbers pertain to mixing pantone brand pigments--which a paint company may or may not be using.

You can certainly take a pantone swatch to a paint store, and they can optically match it, of course.

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Then i can relax my request to "CMYK values of brand name paints". Where to get a list of such values? –  qazwsx Aug 26 '13 at 21:06
Well, again, paints don't use CMYK either. You can try matching CMYK colors to commercial paint colors, but just like RGB, there will be overlap, but you won't be able to reproduce all paint colors as CMYK colors. It'd be great to understand your end goal a bit better. It might help us formulate the answer for you. –  DA01 Aug 26 '13 at 22:53
End goal is to have list of computer readable color values of all paints. –  qazwsx Aug 27 '13 at 16:07
What do you mean 'computer readable'? For what purpose? Are you trying to display paint colors on a screen? –  DA01 Aug 27 '13 at 17:07
At least for displaying colors on screen. –  qazwsx Aug 27 '13 at 21:11

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