AK Real Colors accuracy - can of warms strikes again

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, nsmekanik said:

Just using a good ole desk top light, no manipulation involved, on both my phone and my desk top the colors look pretty much like they do in person which is good enough for me, so it's a what you see there is what you get. 

Which make the comparison basically useless.  You can't paint match under artificial light. 

[alt-92]

6 hours ago, nsmekanik said:

Just using a good ole desk top light

Lightbulb in the good old filament style? LED? 2700K? 3100K? 
Ever wonder why cameras in phones even have a setting for artificial, sun, cloud and other lightsources?  

 

6 hours ago, nsmekanik said:

which is good enough for me, so it's a what you see there is what you get. 

It is absolutely fine to stick to a personal preference - if you like how a colour looks under conditions you will use the most, totally cool with that.
It's just something to be mindful about when making statements about accuracy.

[JackG]

Lighting shouldn't be an issue, as long as both the painted sample and colour swatch are photographed together in same light and angle, ie. lying on top of one another.  There definitely is a difference in  products between the two recent posters.   If not a bad batch, then it could be the paint bottles have the wrong labels.

 

Googling for bad batch, all I found was an issue on their Xtreme Metal line:

http://www.kiwimodeller.com/index.php/forum/25-product-reviews/30418-fyi-ak-interactive-xtreme-metal-recall

 

regards,

Jack

[John Thompson]

Yeah, but when all the colours don't match known standards to which they should have been compared, that means every one of them came from a "bad batch". Very unlikely, unless the manufacturer's quality control is absolutely disastrous. I've never really believed in the "bad batch" explanation anyway, either now or in the past. If a manufacturer releases bad batches into the market, that manufacturer has no business making paints, or any other product. "Your New-Formula Acme Headache Tablets made your hair fall out and your eyeballs bleed? Oops - must have been a bad batch..."

 

John

Edited April 4, 2020 by John Thompson

[Rolls-Royce]

5 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Which make the comparison basically useless.  You can't paint match under artificial light. 

Unless, of course, you use a spectrophotometer...😀

[nsmekanik]

5 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Which make the comparison basically useless.  You can't paint match under artificial light. 

As far as I am concerned you are wrong, the comparison is valid in this case as with every other similar post in other such threads, and I am not matching paint.

 

1 hour ago, alt-92 said:

Lightbulb in the good old filament style? LED? 2700K? 3100K? 
Ever wonder why cameras in phones even have a setting for artificial, sun, cloud and other lightsources?  

 

How do you know the camera settings are not matched to the lighting? I did not use a phone to take the pics by the way.

 

1 hour ago, alt-92 said:

It is absolutely fine to stick to a personal preference - if you like how a colour looks under conditions you will use the most, totally cool with that.
It's just something to be mindful about when making statements about accuracy.

I agree with this in principal, but it is completely out of context to anything I have expressed.

 

And just to reiterate, these pics, on my phone and on my monitor, closely match what I see when sitting at my desk. Your monitor and/or phone may show different

 

 

Accuracy is purely speculative, it all depends on how much faith you have in the representation of the color chips you have access to.

Edited April 4, 2020 by nsmekanik

[alt-92]

31 minutes ago, nsmekanik said:

How do you know the camera settings are not matched to the lighting?

That is why I asked
My main worry in this discussion is however that there seems to be a misunderstanding regarding the context of your tests that leads to raised eyebrows with some people here - maybe unintended.

 

[Troy Smith]

9 hours ago, nsmekanik said:

As far as I am concerned you are wrong, the comparison is valid in this case as with every other similar post in other such threads, and I am not matching paint.

 

9 hours ago, nsmekanik said:

And just to reiterate, these pics, on my phone and on my monitor, closely match what I see when sitting at my desk.

 

You are saying what you see matches chips under artificial light.

 

Take them outside and then see.

 

I posted this on page 2, from @Mike Starmer regarding AK and their paint matching

Quote

Samples of their paint were sent to me for assessment.  None were accurate, not even close, which I reported back with larger samples.  New samples then arrived for testing, still not right.  In discussion I discovered that they were matching under 'daylight' lighting!  FGS are they not sharp or what?  I gave them up as a waste of my time, I told them that too. 

 

All this may tally to your eye and camera, but the light source is important.   It's not like daylight is some amazing hard to access resource.   

 

If you are happy, fine, it's your model etc.   

 

but it doesn't really help the point of the thread,  how well have AK matched the best known matches.  

 

9 hours ago, nsmekanik said:

Accuracy is purely speculative, it all depends on how much faith you have in the representation of the color chips you have access to

 

There are increments of accuracy,  the best researchers show their research, and how they reach the conclusions they do, it's not faith, but a data trail. 

The more information, the less speculation.   

 

Not black and white, but shades of grey   (or green or blue...) 

[nsmekanik]

11 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

 

You are saying what you see matches chips under artificial light.

 

 

No I am not, but feel free to point it out where you see that I have.

 

12 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

 

 

 

Take them outside and then see.

 

 

 

 

Why? See above

15 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

 

 

 

I posted this on page 2, from @Mike Starmer regarding AK and their paint matching

 

 

 

 

I have been quit well aware of Mike Starmers issues with AK for a very long time and fully agree with his analysis along with those of others who have clarified the same issues with their German line using very much the same methodology I am using here, albiet on a different forum that is focused on building armor models, and no I am not going to go and look it up for you.

 

25 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

 

@Mike Starmer

 

 

but it doesn't really help the point of the thread,  how well have AK matched the best known matches.  

 

 

 

 

 

To me, on my devices, the pictures posted by Nick Nichols totally misrepresent how  AK's paints compare to those Chips.

 

And you are totally misrepresenting me in this discussion so I see no point in any further conversation with you. Prattle on as you wish. The End

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Assessment of colour needs to be done either with a calibrated light source as part of a spectrophotometer ideally, or using natural daylight.

 

It does make a difference using artificial light to view swatches by eye because artificial light sources only emit certain frequencies of light averaging a temperature unlike the sun which emits a wide spectrum of visible light which averages a temperature. That means that any light reflected from a paint swatch will have more component frequencies under the sun than it will under an artificial lamp. It's not only possible but very common for samples to appear close under artificial light and look drastically different under natural light.

 

Put simply, under artificial light you aren't seeing the complete colour.

[Nick Nichols]

I took a photos not on phone and under natural light. What has changed? AK paints immediately became similar to Kiroff's chips? Oh, sorry, I forgot - bad batch ))) 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

If someone wants to mail me some chips at least 2cm x 2cm I will measure them by spectrophotometer and resolve this with direct comparison to Jürgen Kiroff's chips, rendered side by side, with CIELAB values and Delta E value.

[antonio argudo]

 just found this interesting thread, I would like to add my two cents, been researching these colors for some time now,  I  have not tried  the AK colors but in the pictures posted here they seem to be quite off...  I have some plywood relics from a  late 109 stabilizer  containing RLM 74/75/76  very well preserved, what can be more accurate then the real thing?  I have also made some comparisons with some ww2  photos and other examples also.

The main problem I see is with RLM 74 been represented by most paint brands as too greenish color, it was more a just dark grey, that can be confirmed also with  the original 1941 farbtontafel  color chart

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by antonio argudo

[antonio argudo]

this is wonderful relics form a mate from Czech republic, the 109 radio panel is in excellent condition showing the rlm 74

 

I been testing colors and found that Tamiya XF-63 is a very close match to the RLM 74 of my relics 

 

 

[antonio argudo]

some other interesting relics showing RLM 74

 

bf109 

 

from a bf110  

bf109

 

bf109 ruder

Edited April 10, 2020 by antonio argudo

[Roger Hardy]

I have an axe to grind regarding AK colours.  I've been using Tamiya for years but was always frustrated by the lack of a complete range of authentic colours for aircraft.  So, I've been trying other manufacturers, AK and Hataka.  AK make wonderful metallic colours so I bought various sets of their authentic colours but was disappointed that the colours seem to be way off what I'm used to.  For example, the forest green for Portuguese colours is not dark enough to contrast with the dark green. RAF Dark Sea Grey is too dark )in tone about the same as Dark Green) and RAF Dark Earth is too pale.  Is this just me or has anyone else got an issue with these paints? 

[Shalako]

On 11/26/2019 at 7:50 PM, Don149 said:

Tom , if you saw two aircraft parked side by side , same type/manufacture , one a year or two old and the other quite new , you would

say they had been painted in different colours . Don`t be too dogmatic about camouflage shades , you`re on a hiding to nothing .

For several years now , I`ve used Xtracolor enamels and have no plans to change .

                                                                                                                                  Don .

Even though, I am not satisfied with the accuracy of their colours (particularly the BS381 series), I will agree with Don.

 

Colours do vary from aircraft to aircraft, and it is best to have photos from the actual aircraft you want to represent in scale, to support your build and particularly the two last stages, those of painting and weathering.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

[Graham Boak]

12 minutes ago, Shalako said:

Colours do vary from aircraft to aircraft, and it is best to have photos from the actual aircraft you want to represent in scale, to support your build and particularly the two last stages, those of painting and weathering.

 

Indeed, but this is a matter of weathering which will depend upon the conditions in which the aircraft is operating and the original pigments - different manufacturers can produce apparently identical paints which weather differently.  I see this as a problem with the British Dark Green which appears to weather to either a strongly olive/chocolate brown or to a grassy green.  But this discussion is whether the AK paints (or perhaps the paint of your choice) accurately reflects the standard, not every individual variation seen from it with age or climate.  If it gives us a green RLM 74, then it doesn't.

 

I was thinking about changing my attitude and buying the Real Colour aircraft book, but following these discussions through again I rather doubt that I will.

[Roger Hardy]

I wasn't so worried about weathering or fading, just getting something like the right colour from the jar.  I have to say that they spray well though....