The color

What color should I paint my color grading room?

Neutral middle grey. Colored or bright walls reflect onto your screen and shift how your eyes judge color. A spectrally neutral grey gives your eyes a fixed reference.

Is N5 not too dark for a room?

It can feel dark at first, but that is the point. N5 reflects about 20% of the light, so your walls stay calm and your eyes adapt to the screen instead of the room. In our own studio it has never been a problem. Good ambient lighting makes the real difference: see our guide on color grading room setup.

What is the difference between 18% grey, middle grey and Munsell N5?

In practice they are the same reference: the grey that sits halfway between black and white for the human eye. Photographers call it 18% grey, the Munsell system calls it N5. Read more in What is Munsell N5?

Do you also sell N6, N7, N8 or N9?

No, we only make middle grey, Munsell N5. A lighter grey such as N7 reflects around 40% of the light. That raises the brightness your eyes adapt to, which can subtly change how you judge contrast, shadows and highlights.

Can I get a sample?

We do not offer samples. Grey Paint is mixed to order and the smallest can is 2.5 liters.

Should the ceiling and floor be grey too?

The walls in your field of vision matter most. A grey ceiling helps if it reflects light onto your screen. The floor matters least.

Is Grey Paint only for color grading?

No. Grading suites are where it started, but a neutral wall helps anywhere color has to be judged, or simply seen as it is.

Photographers and retouchers paint the wall behind their screen. Printers and designers use it to compare a proof with the file it came from. And in a museum or gallery, a neutral grey wall adds nothing of its own: the painting shows its own colors, not the ones the wall lends it. Why not see an artwork the way it was meant to be seen?

The same goes for any room where the question is “is this the right color?”: restoration studios, product photography, VFX and animation review rooms, textile and fashion, dental labs matching a shade.

Which RAL or NCS color is closest to middle grey?

Some codes come close in lightness, but none is defined as spectrally neutral, and store mixing machines add their own margin of error. That is why Grey Paint is measured in L*a*b* instead of matched to a color code.

Using the paint

How much paint do I need?

2.5 liters covers 20 to 25 m², and 5 liters covers 40 to 50 m², depending on the surface. We recommend painting every wall within your field of vision. For a small suite, 2.5 liters is normally enough.

Is one coat enough?

On a wall that already has a solid, covering layer of white paint, one coat is normally enough. What matters most is how much the surface still absorbs. On a new or porous wall, use a cheaper white latex paint as a first coat and finish with Grey Paint.

Which surfaces can I paint?

Plaster, masonry, concrete, aerated concrete, plaster elements and glass fiber fabric.

Can I use it on metal, wood or plastic?

Yes, with a suitable bonding primer underneath. Grey Paint is a water-based wall paint, so it needs that primer to hold on smooth surfaces.

Can I use Grey Paint as a grey card?

Yes. Paint a board or a piece of card and you have a highly accurate grey card for shoots, in the same grey as your grading room. A larger painted board also works as a half neg fill: it takes away light more gently than black, without adding a color cast.

Ordering and shipping

Which countries do you ship to?

We ship within the EU: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg, Spain and the Czech Republic. Is your EU country not listed? Send us a request.

Do you ship to the UK, Switzerland, the US or other countries outside the EU?

Not at the moment. The cost and paperwork of exporting paint outside the EU are too high compared to the value of an order.

Do you have resellers?

No. We mix Grey Paint to order and ship it ourselves, so we keep control over the color from recipe to can. It also means your paint has not spent months on a shelf: you get the full shelf life.

How fast do you ship?

We do our utmost to mix and ship your order on the same working day, and otherwise within two working days. Orders are shipped with PostNL.

About us

Who is behind Grey Paint?

Grey Paint was started by Joep Grootings, filmmaker and owner of the creative studio Great Things in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In 2021 he wanted neutral grey walls for his own grading suite, but none of the paints and grey cards he tested turned out to be truly neutral. He set out to understand why hitting exact middle grey is so hard. Getting there took many rounds of mixing and lab measurements. Keeping it there, every time, was a challenge of its own.