Paint store walls are lined with displays carrying hundreds of tiny swatches of colors with baffling and ambiguous names. A store might be known for having a salesperson with a particularly astute eye for color. Now, with the aid of computerized color analysis programs, the guesswork has disappeared. That was darker. She wanted us to match a place in the middle of it.
Surface is the other major consumer concern.
People generally used high-gloss in kitchens, bathrooms and on trim, then turned to flat paint for the rest. Today, there are several intermediate surfaces, each with its advantages. Flat paints are generally the least expensive paints, even in premium paint lines. But they also have the least washable surface. Flat paints are best for hiding slight irregularities.