How to recognize BrickLink color of a Lego element

[Lapidem]

Hello

I'm still very new in the Lego hobby as an AFOL, so please do not be too strict if my question is for a "professional" banal or sounds stupid.

How do I clearly recognize the right Bricklinks color name of a Lego element that I have in fact as an object in front of me?

The fact is that the color perception depends on the light with which an object is illuminated and thus one and the same color can look different.

In addition, the colors of bricklinks also display at a self-luminous monitor, which makes a safe color comparison with an illuminated object even more difficult.

Unfortunately, without a color-calibrated printer and paper, printouts are also not  suitable for performing reliable color comparisons.

So how do you know which Bricklink exact color the Legobrick has in front of you?
Only by long  experiences and/or comparing with stones whose exact color you know for sure?
But there are so many Bricklink colors, how to get reliable reference sample , especially as a beginner of every "challenging" color?

Lapidem

P.S.
I have written this text with the help of the Google translator , please apologize if the text should sound odd for a native speaker 

 

 

 

Edited November 26, 2016 by Lapidem

[pirzyk]

Hi Lapidem,

Welcome to EB!

Quote

So how do you know which Bricklink exact color the Legobrick has in front of you?

This is a very good question.  There is no simple answer here.

Quote

Only by long  experiences and/or comparing with stones whose exact color you know for sure?

Yes this helps quite a bit but still fails the rest of us when LEGO introduces a new color.  I currently use Peeron's color chart list to map color names from different sites:  http://peeron.com/inv/colors

I just noticed they also have an "official" LEGO color chart that also lists Pantone, CMYK and RGB color codes: http://peeron.com/cgi-bin/invcgis/colorguide.cgi

Comparing bricks based on color can be a problem because LEGO has some issues with being consistent in their colors, as shown in this MOC:

Quote

But there are so many Bricklink colors, how to get reliable reference sample , especially as a beginner of every "challenging" color?

The main thing I do is compare bricks of slightly different colors under good lighting.  In my LEGO room, I have 5K LED lights so I now can see a difference between Light Gray and Light Bluish Gray.  Under the old incandescence lights I could only see the difference between Dark Gray and Dark Bluish Gray.  In both cases the latter bricks have this bluish hue to them whereas the older Grays have a more yellowish hue.

One other "trick" I use is in BL to find all the parts the color is used in and then see if I have one of those parts to use as a reference.  I recently did this to match 'Light Aqua' color and I had the baby bottle.  Since the Baby Bottle only comes in one color, I knew this was the name of that color.

Of course all this is of no use when you have weathered and faded bricks (or the above mentioned LEGO color matching issue).

Hope this helps.

[Sven F]

If this is something you need to differentiate very often,  i know a lot of bricklink sellers have a physical color chart with 2x4 bricks in (almost) every color. 

Otherwise it's just a learning process.  It was overwhelming for me when i got out of my dark ages and two different naming standards didn't help.  It helps if you eliminate all the old, irrelevant colors like the Scala shades.  If you look at the peeron chart,  almost half of those colors aren't used anymore. 

Most common mistakes are the new and old greys,   old brown and  reddish brown,  old pink and bright pink.  Pearl light grey gets confused with flat silver, and some of the ligher blue shades can get mixed up if don't have a reference.  The rest you should be able to tell by eye. 

[Lapidem]

Hello,

thanks for the information and recommendations. 

 

Lapidem

[zux]

It is also convenient to have (collectable) minifigures as these tend to have many parts in different colours. I use this method for identifying shades of blue and pink/purple/violet as the rest is quite obvious.