Search the Community

I measured the full range of Vallejo Air paints using a spectrophotometer. I did this work because Vallejo is known for giving sometimes random labels to their paints - the label on their bottles are not always a good information about the color they are supposed to be, and sometimes they are misleading - there are better matches in their own paint range. With this data, it is possible to give a definite answer to the questions: "Which paint from the Vallejo Air range is the closest match to a given color." "Is Vallejo Air XYZ a good match for ABC" What other paint vendor color is equivalent for Vallejo XYZ (or the other way around) I will prepare some answers to the first question on separate threads focusing on given color range topics, like ANA, FS, RAF, or Luftwaffe. If you need other answers - feel free to ask. This post is just a snapshot of the raw data from this measurement task which I hope could be useful to someone. It is also quite technical. How to interpret the data: Name, for example 71.082 | Fluorescent Red | Rojo Fluorescente | FS38903 | RAL2005 | GU 2.5 | Fluorescent | Opacity 32.63% 71.082 it is a Vallejo AIR vendor code Fluorescent Red | Rojo Fluorescente | FS38903 | RAL2005 those are all names that appear on bottle, they are just separated with "|" GU 2.5 Gloss Unit measurement of color. It is a measurement from a Glossmeter device and represents how glossy the paint is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossmeter It is a very important factor for human color perception. Very glossy colors appear darker than they really are, and the difference in gloss is quite often more visible than the color difference. The number scale is not defined by any standard, but generally, you can think of them as <5 is very matt, <10 is matt, 10-25 is satin, 25-40 is semi-gloss, 40-80 is gloss, >80 is very glossy, >90 is mirror-like. The above example is 2.5 - which means the paint is very matt Fluorescent (or Metallic) optional note, meaning the paint is Fluorescent or Metallic. In the above example, the paint is Fluorescent. Opacity % optional note with a % number, it means the paint is only that many percent opaque at a 254-micron thickness (very thick). In the above example, the paint is only 1/3 opaque, which makes it very transparent. Don't expect good coverage with transparent paints. R,G,B RGB of the paint color Color simulation A color swatch with the above RGB L*a*b* Color coordinates in L*a*b* color space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIELAB_color_space This color representation is much more precise than sRGB and takes into account human color sensitivity. The three coordinates of CIELAB represent the lightness of the color (L* = 0 yields black, and L* = 100 indicates diffuse white; specular white may be higher), its position between red and green (a*, where negative values indicate green and positive values indicate red) and its position between yellow and blue (b*, where negative values indicate blue and positive values indicate yellow). LRV Light reflectance value represents how much light is reflected from the paint surface - scale from 0 to 100 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_reflectance_value H V C (Munsell) Color coordinates on Munsell color chart. It is useful since some references use this notation to represent a color https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system Light source and Test mode Those are spectrophotometer settings, If you are curious about what they mean, read the technical details below for more info. Even more technical details: Now the raw data: Update 2024-11-26: Added 2 new paints in the range