Painting your house

Select a part on the Parts tab (or click it on the photo with Select), then pick a color on the Colors tab. The paint shows at once. Remove the color under the chosen paint takes it off the part; Show more under the colors (it says how many are left) loads the brand’s next ones.

The Parts tab lists the parts to paint, each with its paint’s swatch and name, and under it the part’s color as photographed, its share of the house, how close the paint on screen is (ΔE) and edited once its outline was changed by hand — with the brush, the eraser or a box — or it was added with Add the part (an added part not drawn yet shows empty for its share; a sliver, <1%). Undo doesn’t take edited away. A part with no color has a No color swatch: empty, crossed by a red line. The roof, windows, stone, brick and lamps are listed under Staying as they are. In a narrow window the side panel’s tabs stay on one row: the arrows beside them (or the arrow keys on a tab) reach the rest, and the photo’s tools sit across the top of the page.

How the color is shown

The app paints each part with the paint’s exact color in the part’s normal light, and keeps the photo’s own shadows, texture and lap lines: a wall in shade is the same paint, darker. Beside each painted part the Parts tab says how close the painted wall comes to the paint in that part’s light — the chip itself, or with On it now set the chip in the light that paint read — ΔE under 1 is a difference most people can’t see, under 2 is a close match (its tag turns green). It measures the painting, not the light: how close the light On it now read is to the real one, it can’t say.

On this wall — under the chosen paint on the Colors tab, the same paint as it shows on the selected part: In shade, on Most of it and In light. The light one is the chip — in the part’s own light when On it now is set, and through Light; a wall in the shade of a roof or a tree shows mostly the darker ones, as real paint would.

On it now — if you know the paint a part has today, tell the app: on the Colors tab switch The new color to On it now and click that paint (search for it, or type its color under the list); the switch then goes back to The new color. It doesn’t paint anything: the app compares that paint with how your camera photographed it on the part’s normally lit areas, which gives the photo’s real light there — how bright, and from a light, soft paint (a white, a gray, a cream) its tint too (shade and an overcast sky are bluish), kept within a small range. A strong or dark paint (a red door, a navy shutter) gives the brightness only: its weak colors would turn a small difference between the camera and the chip into a strong tint on every new color. A paint far darker than what the camera saw there (black, for a light wall) gives no reading. Every new color on that part then shows in that light, and so does the AI photo; the limits are in App Settings → Advanced (the AI photo’s compositing values). The line On it now: … shows the paint; Clear forgets it. It is kept with the house. Not sure what’s on it? Leave it: the paint then shows at its chip color in the part’s normal light.

Light — a brighter or duller day over the whole picture, photo and paint alike: 1 is the photo’s own light. The ΔE beside each part is always measured at the photo’s own light.

A dark finish painted light — paint covers the old finish’s own colors, not the boards’ shadows. When you paint a dark part (stained wood, a dark paint — a wall, a door, shutters, trim) much lighter, the app takes out the old finish’s blotches and grain and keeps the lines between the boards, as fresh paint would look. It does this only for a dark finish, and only along the boards: stucco keeps its texture; on brick the rows stay and the joints between bricks soften. Whether a finish is dark is read from the photo, against its brightest parts, so a light part photographed in shade is painted as photographed. In a photo taken against a bright sky, a light wall can read as dark: set its paint in On it now and the app goes by that paint instead. The first light color on such a part, and the first after you change its outline, take a moment longer.

Texture — how much of what’s left of the photo’s texture shows: lower it to calm it further; at 1 it is kept whole. At any Texture the wall’s normal light stays the chip (In light). The photo changes when you let go of the slider (or leave its box after typing a number), not while you drag it.

Light and Texture are the app’s, not the house’s: they stay as you set them, for every house, until you change them. Save image and the color card paint with them; the AI photo doesn’t use them.

A slider’s box takes a number in the slider’s range: a number past either end is taken as that end, and what isn’t a number goes back to the slider’s value when you leave the box.

Comparing

Compare with puts something else on the left of a line across the photo: The photo as taken (before and after — under the same Light), or one of the house’s saved designs — so two designs sit side by side (open one, compare with the other). The colors on screen stay on the right; the slider beside it moves the line. Side by side shows the two as pictures next to each other instead — one zoom, one pan; the brush, eraser, box and Pick a color work on the right one. Nothing takes the line away.

Outlines draws the edge of the Selected part (the default), of All parts, or none (Off); the choice is kept. Zoom with the mouse wheel or the +, − and Fit buttons at the photo’s top right; drag with Select to move the photo — or, once it is zoomed or moved, use the arrow buttons (←, ↑, ↓, →) beside them. While Compare with is on (and Side by side is off), Line sets where the left one ends.

Undo and Reset

Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z, and Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z — on a Mac ⌘ works too) take back a color, or a change to a part’s outline made with the brush, the eraser or a box, and put it back again. They remember the last 50 steps while the house is open; Find the parts again starts them over, and so does another window changing this house’s outlines. Undo also puts back which design was open. The keys work anywhere on the page except while you type in a field (there they undo your typing) or while a dialog is open.

Reset offers Remove all colors — the photo as taken — and, when you changed the colors of an open design, Back to that design’s saved colors. Undo brings back what a Reset took away.

Designs

Save the colors on the house as a design on the Designs tab: Save as a new design. A house keeps several; click one to put its colors back on. Once you change a color, the open design shows changed and Save keeps the change. With colors on the house that aren’t saved in a design, the app asks first before they’re dropped — when you open another design, leave the house, close the window, reload it or quit (in a browser, the browser asks in its own words). Each design’s buttons rename it and delete it (its AI photos stay, then named Colors on screen). A house keeps up to 30 designs (Designs per house, in App Settings → General → Designs and paint files); past that, Save as a new design says “This house has all the designs it can keep” — delete one first, or raise the number.

A design that leaves some of the trim’s parts without a color — soffits and fascia, window trim or decorations it was saved before the house had, or gutters, columns and railings you left unpainted — says which when you open it, on the Designs tab: Paint them the trim’s color paints them the design’s trim color — nothing changes until you press it, and Undo takes it back — and Dismiss leaves them as they are.

With the keyboard

Tab goes through the buttons, lists and fields; whatever has the keyboard’s focus has a ring around it.

• A part — on the Parts tab, Tab to it and press Enter.
• A paint — the colors on the Colors tab are one Tab stop (the chosen one, or the first): the arrow keys move between them, up and down a row too, Home and End go to the first and the last, and Enter or Space picks one. Tab goes on to Show more and what follows.
• A color of your own — type its hex under An exact color; a part’s color as photographed is the small round swatch on its row on the Parts tab.
• The photo — Tab reaches it too; once you have zoomed in with +, the arrow keys move it.
• A box — choose Box, Tab to the photo and press an arrow key: a crosshair shows. The arrow keys move it (with Shift, further); Enter (or Space) sets one corner, again the other, and the finder outlines what is inside. Escape lets go of the box, then hides the crosshair.
• A color off the photo — choose Pick a color, Tab to the photo, move the crosshair the same way and press Enter (or Space).
• Drawing — the Brush and the Eraser draw a path, so they need a mouse, a pen or touch.

Saving the picture

Save image writes the painted photo as a JPEG at full size — up to 16 megapixels: a bigger photo is saved scaled down to that, the same shape (App Settings → General → Photos → Save image and the AI photo, at most (megapixels) sets it). A big photo takes a few seconds; the button waits meanwhile, and the rest of the app keeps working. Copy the color list copies each painted part with its paint as the app names it (“Body: SW 7008 Alabaster”) to take to the store — a paint that isn’t loaded any more is left out. Save a color card on the Designs tab makes one picture of both: the painted photo, then each painted part with its paint’s swatch, name and number, and hex.

Colors on a screen are never exactly the paint — your screen, the photo’s light and the paint’s sheen all differ. Check a real sample on your house before you buy.