Open colour dataset
5,573 US architectural paint colours with manufacturer-published hex, LRV, undertone classification and family. Downloadable, citable, and with the methodology published alongside it.
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What each record holds
| Field | Meaning | Provenance |
|---|---|---|
brand | Manufacturer | — |
code | Official colour code | Manufacturer |
name | Official colour name | Manufacturer |
hex | sRGB value | Manufacturer-published |
lrv | Light Reflectance Value, 0–100 | Manufacturer where available, else computed |
lrv_provenance | manufacturer or computed | Derived |
undertone | Hue bias at low chroma | Computed in OKLCh |
temperature | warm, cool or neutral | Computed |
family | Colour family | Computed, thresholds published |
Where the values come from
No hex in this set was invented or taken from an aggregator. Sherwin-Williams publishes its full deck as an official PDF of colour number, name and RGB. Benjamin Moore publishes its collections as Adobe .ase files on its design-professional downloads page; every BM entry is in the RGB model, so no colour space is converted by eye.
LRV is different. Manufacturers publish it per colour on individual pages rather than in bulk, so the set carries the manufacturer's figure where we have retrieved it and a computed one everywhere else — always labelled in lrv_provenance, never silently blended.
How accurate it is
Computed LRV is the WCAG 2.2 relative luminance of the manufacturer's hex, multiplied by 100. That is the standard screen-side approximation, not a spectrophotometer reading, and the two do not agree exactly.
Where we hold both figures the difference is measurable, and it runs differently per brand. On Sherwin-Williams the computed value sits consistently 0.8 to 0.9 points above the published one. On Benjamin Moore it is only +0.44 on a mid-tone but reaches −2.8 and −3.0 on light colours, which suggests their palette files are a display-tuned approximation rather than a colorimetric one.
Both directions are published rather than averaged away. If you need colorimetric accuracy this set does not provide it, and no sRGB-derived set can: use the manufacturer's published figure or measure a physical sample.
How to cite it
Licensed Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Use it, redistribute it and build on it, including commercially, as long as you attribute.
PaintingMania. Open colour dataset. 2026-08-17. https://paintingmania.shop/data/
Trademarks
Colour names, codes and systems are trademarks of their manufacturers and are cited here as editorial reference. This dataset is not affiliated with or endorsed by any manufacturer. The CC BY licence covers our compilation and our derived values, not third-party marks.
The full methodology covers undertone classification, family thresholds and why screen colour is approximate.