Color schemes

The Schemes tab suggests whole schemes — a body color, a trim color and an accent for the front door — always as real paints of the brand you choose. Apply puts a scheme on the house: the body color on the body and the garage door, the trim color on the trim, columns, railings, gutters, soffits, window trim and decorations, the accent on the front door and shutters. The chimney stays as it is — often brick or stone; give it a color on the Colors tab if yours is painted. Which parts each color paints is in App Settings → Advanced.

From a paint you chose

Give the body a color first (the Colors tab); the schemes are built around it, in the brand chosen above them (“Around …”). When the body has no color of this brand — none yet, another brand’s, or one whose brand isn’t loaded — they are built around the selected part’s paint, if it is this brand’s (“Around … — the Trim’s paint”), and the tab says why the body’s isn’t used (“The body’s paint is …‘s — choose … above, or give the body a color of this brand”, “The body’s paint isn’t in the loaded colors”). The schemes: Complementary, Analogous, Triadic, One color, three shades, and Classic — light trim and a strong door on a mid-tone body: a light or dark body color becomes the brand’s nearest mid-tone paint of its hue, so Apply changes the body too. Each color is the brand’s nearest real paint, checked so the trim stands out from the body and the door from the body (the door is only a different paint from the trim). Schemes leave out the paints a brand marks for inside use, and discontinued ones. The rules’ thresholds are in App Settings → Advanced.

A scheme that can’t be made says why on its row, and its Apply is off. A nearly gray paint (a white, a gray, a black) has no hue for Complementary, Analogous, Triadic or One color, three shades — Classic works with any color; and when no paint of the brand near a role’s color is light, dark or colorful enough, the row says which role.

The brand’s own pairings

Sherwin-Williams, Valspar, HGTV Home and Dutch Boy list two or three coordinating colors for most of their paints; when the body’s paint has them, they come first, checked against the same rules. Behr, Benjamin Moore and PPG / Glidden publish none.

Ask the AI

Suggest schemes asks the AI model set up in AI Settings for schemes that suit your house. The app tells it the colors it found on your photo — the body’s current color, the roof, the stone, what stays — and which parts will be painted, and the AI answers with schemes; every color it names is matched to the brand’s nearest real exterior paint. The AI’s schemes don’t go through the checks above: look at the trim and the door before you apply one. Add a few words about what you like (“warm”, “coastal”, “historic”) to steer it. Its progress shows under the button while it works, with Cancel. Find the parts first: the AI reads the house’s colors from them. If the answer can’t be read as schemes, the app says “The AI’s answer couldn’t be used” — ask again, or point the feature at a stronger model. This needs an AI model — see Set up the AI; what the AI is told can be changed — see The AI features.