Learn About Color: Metamerism – Or Why Your Interior Paint Changes Colors

August 26, 2013

Are you ready for a quick science lesson from an interior painting company? Objects like the walls of your home affect light by reflecting or absorbing light of different wavelengths. That’s color in a nutshell. A wall that absorbs most red light and reflects most blue light look blue to us.

Now take two blue walls, one that absorbs most red light and one (still blue) that reflects some red light. Under certain lighting types (those with a bluish quality), these two blue walls may look almost identical, while under other forms of lighting (those with a reddish quality), the two blues will look quite different.

jerry enos painting - Metamerism

You may have seen metamerism in action when you’ve had two items of clothing that you would swear were both black while indoors, but once you walked outside one turned out to be navy blue.

This story originally appeared in our monthly newsletter, Prime Time by Jerry Enos Painting – to subscribe, contact us!

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