Explore over 1,500 paint options for your walls.
Nothing spruces up a drab looking room like a new coat of paint to make the walls pop with color and personality. But, if you’ve ever taken on the task of painting a room, then you know that the process can be time consuming and frustrating – and that’s just picking out the colors!
The folks over at Sherwin-Williams have understood this frustration since 2015, launching their ColorSnap Visualizer app that helps you navigate the overwhelming color picking process. At the time, it was a pretty impressive app, but it was limited in its functionality and only worked with pre-installed sample scenes.
Now thanks to an app update, ColorSnap Visualizer is getting a powerful AR makeover with the addition of Instant Paint, a feature that lets you use your smartphone or tablet camera to make faster and more confident color selections in real-time. You can use any of the over 1,500 shades of colors available from the Sherwin-Williams color catalog.
Accessing Instant Paint’s AR capabilities is super easy. Simply launch ColorSnap Visualizer and from there the app will guide you through the process of scanning the walls of your home as it prepares to do its magic.
Once your room is ready, you can then explore the multiple paint swatches, which are broken down in colors and tones, and see what color makes the room most appealing to you. If you’re not completely sure, you can always check out what the experts think.
From there, you’re able to move your paint choices into a custom palette that you can then easily swap in and out with a simple finger tap, making the process of choosing colors easier for you.
The app allows you to walk around the room and view your walls from all perspectives to decide if painting the dining room that Tailpot Palm color, or the living room Ellie Grey is something you like, or something you really love. Don’t worry about the artwork, photos, and outlets on your walls – Instant Paint, will paint around them so you can really envision the room before starting the task of painting.
“Using emerging AR technology, this new feature virtually transforms a space before picking up a brush,” said Meghan Vickers, Sherwin-Williams e-business marketing director in a press statement. “Instant Paint provides a fast, seamless way for homeowners and professionals to build confidence during color selection.”
The Sherwin-Williams painting app offers up some other nifty features other than painting in AR with Instant Paint. You can also match color swatches through a photo, figure out how many gallons you’ll need to paint a room, save your favorite colors, and match the color of something you found on Pinterest.
ColorSnap Visualizer isn’t the first painting AR app to hit the app store. In 2014, the Dutch company AkzoNobel launched the world’s first AR painting app called Visualizer and won a major technology prize at the 2014 UK IT Industry Awards for it.
Currently the Sherwin-Williams updated ColorSnap Visualizer app with Instant Paint is only available in the US on the Apple App store for iPhone 6s or newer running iOS 11, and on the Android App store for devices that are AR compatible.
You can find more information on ColorSnap Visualizer on the Sherwin-Williams website.
