My studio space.. in progress

You can bring in a grey card to Home Depot and say, "match this." I'm sure other paint sources can do color matching as well.

If you have a grey card they will probably be able to match that pretty closely.


I'm curious, does 18% grey mean 18% Black and 82% white? If so that's a pretty easy way for them to mix the paint.

Edit: beat to it.

It doesn't have to be 18% gray. You're not concerned about the reflectivity value as you would be for white balance or exposure. You simply want something neutral that will not absorb or reflect much light and more importantly, something that does not give a color cast, meaning no blue in the paint. You'll find that many gray paints have some blue in them. If you want to make sure you have something neutral, take a gray card and have them color match it, but you may find that to be too dark and drab. Find a balance so the room can still have some life. You don't want to kill all the reflection, so don't go too dark.

Oh no, 18% gray walls again.

I been to this movie already.

Enjoy! Lon

Hey Lon,

How did that all get started? I know we keep seeing that over and over.

I'm going to get a gray suit but I'm going to make sure it is 18% gray... LOLOL

Sorry if this has been hashed over before. I haven't paid much attention to this subject until now.
What's so wrong with white walls?

pepperoni wrote in post #4871256
Sorry if this has been hashed over before. I haven't paid much attention to this subject until now.
What's so wrong with white walls?

Hi pepperoni,

There's nothing wrong with white walls but most people in a small to medium space avoid white because it will reflect quite a bit of light back into parts of the scene or subject area that may be undesirable. If that's the case you may have to be creative with black foam core, flags and gobo's to control that bounced and reflected light. With something more neutral you don't have to 'tame' the light as much and you have a bit more control.

You'll really notice this if you were shooting on black and didn't want any contamination or extraneous light. This could also be a factor that affects your subject area.

You can use white but you might want to think about something a little darker.

As I have mentioned in other posts on this subject.

Black walls and ceilings are for purists (stop those reflections off the ceilings and walls)

White walls and ceilings are for pragmatists (ever tried to find a coin dropped on the floor of a room painted all black).

Grey walls and ceilings are for those that cannot decide if they are a purist or a pragmatist and think they can have it both ways.

I suggest you just keep your white walls.

If you are engaging in mostly photographs of human beings, few will complain that the light is not harsh enough (bouncing light will tend to soften the lighting effect).

If you absolutely have to stop the wall reflections, use a strategically placed black backdrop. This is my methodology, but I seldom have to use a black backdrop.

Enjoy! Lon

FlashZebra wrote in post #4872064
As I have mentioned in other posts on this subject.

Black walls and ceilings are for purists.

White walls and ceilings are for pragmatists.

Grey walls and ceilings are for those that cannot decide if they are a purist or a pragmatist.

Enjoy! Lon

LOLOLOL You might just be right about that Lon.

Do not ignore the possibility of using the garage door as a part of the studio as far as using 'window' light. I know a photographer who has a studio with a large garage door opening like that who made all sorts of temporary 'walls' with different openings to the outside that fits over the garage door opening to emmulate different window openings, etc. I've seen some great window light shots created with this kind of a setup, depending on which way your garage door faces and what time of year you could get some great light in to use.

FlashZebra wrote in post #4871015
Oh no, 18% gray walls again.

I been to this movie already.

Enjoy! Lon

I would have thought that given the number of requests on this that someone would have come up with the RLL's by now. This way all the fence-sitters (aka cake-eaters) would be verbalising about the same shade.....