Accurate Aircraft Paint & Colour Discussions

[wh1skea]

Like mclaring, I doubt that I'd be much help.....granted, if there is a way I can help, I will....but the idea of having consistant swatches sounds very appealing.

[Supah]

Hah! Dumbo here just uses the coloursampling tool in photoshop! Ever seen four operational F-16's lined up at the ORP? They were all painted in the same colour once, with the emphasis on once, but now none of the colours match up between jets.

[mclaring]

hah! Supah has revealed my secret. Color sampling ! Of course, its done better using Photoshop (back into the trenches eh lads?). seriously, we all acknowledge that there's no such thing as a 'right' color, but at least we can approximate factory specs (not always met)

Mclaring

[RAF_Loke]

I'm in with what I can help with.
Not sure I quit understand what is meant with correct colour though.
The real colour codes in RGB is difficult to track down.

[ratfugel]

This colour thing has bugged me for ages. So far as I can tell each airforce has its own numbering system. So if you can get hold of one of these lists, copy it and then using the colour picker in PS go into the colour swatch or Pantones and locate the numbers, save them according to what aircraft you are trying to paint. Problem is, locating the lists. Difficult but it can be done. I did it for the Brazilian lot and I've seen at least one each for the British and US colours although I didn't realise at the the time how valuable they were so I didn't save them. Another little problem is that everyone's monitor is slightly different. CR monitors differ from flat screens for instance. Also brightnesses vary enormously, so what one sees whilst profiling, may not be what someone else sees if their monitor is toned down a bit..... etc, etc.

rat.

[JMSmith]

STOP!!!!!,

right let start again and this time we will all start at the same time, sycronise your mices.

1, at the bottom of this page is a greyscale bar, use it, this will ofset some of the monitor issues, but not all

2, i am getting lots of negative vibes in the above posts, THINK POSITIVE, it don't always work but its better than nothing.

3, could each of you post what YOU think new rlm 70/71 looks like, not faded, straight out the tin, and i don't want anything like " this is what ullman quotes" i want profile colours NOT rlms standard of 1939 because no body will get that no matter how good these historians think they are

4, we need SIMON come on you bugger stop hiding

[RAF_Loke]

Do you know this calculator? The RGB Color Calculator / Web Page Color Choosing Tool / HTML Color Code Generator

[Serval]

I know similar tools.

I'll follow this closely.
First I am curious which colors need to be addressed.

Personally I think that after the VVS colors , the RLM colors are among the best.
How I translated those:
First use the known RLM-RAL translation list (you can see in the list which colors are converted that way) from 1944.
Then I used official software from RAL you translate it to RGB colors. After that I used the books on Luftwaffe colors I have for colors that could not be translated through RAL.

The big point is: the colors will look different on each device. Since the gamma data is missing for example. And this is on purpose. We are working with RAL and FS595 data mostly which is copyrighted material. Adding such data would make our lists reusable for commercial purposes without having to buy the material from the organisations who maintain the FS595 and RAL data. I even sometimes get mails requesting to add this data from people who hink to be smart.

And then I agree to Supah, paint fades through aging. Just thing of those old red cars. But also the Olive drab on B-25´s and P-40´s (take a look at photo´s of the Dutch B-25 where you can see the top and the side and you´ll see it).
Then how colors appear on photographs depends on calibration of the camera (white balance etc) and what time of the day and with which light conditions (clouds, sun etc.) the photo was taken.

We'll never have exact colors, even if we just try to resamble the brand new version.
But I'm very happy to update the lists when it's known that there are errors, or when new information shows that the colors are different.

[RAF_Loke]

We'll never have exact colors, even if we just try to resamble the brand new version.

How come as a colour should be a standard code? What we then each see will of course be different because of the monitors, light in the room and etc. Even if I close one eye and then change the colour is slightly different per eye.

[Serval]

Simply, because we don't know what the colors were. Documentation about how the colors were made is often gone. Even the best known colors are subject to debate.
To stay with German paint: The paint was made by various factories, and colors between those factories were different.
Even in our modern times there are color differences between different production batches.

And for the list: as I wrote before, we have to limit ourselves to RGB values not to get copyright problems. So, you are lacking information. Let´s assume the RGB data is calibrated to my printer (it´s not it´s calibrated to a general monitor), then they will be fine on my printer, and everyone with the same printer as me (ignoring differences between the printers due to calibration).

Now, for RAL, British Standard(?) and FS595 it is possible to obtain software which can calculate the right values for your system. But this software is not cheap.
For all other countries we don't have this possability. French or Italian colors are aften (by modellers but also museums) translated to the FS 595 system. Well, the FS 595 system has about 600 colors devided in gloss, silk and matte. So, actually somewhere betweem 200 and 250 colors. I think that makes clear that it will give a huge error in translation. Even worse then using RGB data without adding values as gamma.