lisah, maybe you should register with BenM as a *designer* ;) so you can get the large sized Ben Moore paint chips. See the link below to register.

I'm sure you know by now since you've been playing with the Viewer, that it can not show you true to life color. It's two different *spaces* of color. Viewer is additive and your eye sees the emitted light and paint chips are subtractive and the eye sees the reflected light. It is possible to sync up between the two spaces, but it's no small task and not the kind of thing people who buy those viewers are in a position to do -- the viewers allude to the differences of color on the monitor to paint chips, but I don't think it's explained often enough nor good enough.

So my point is (finally :~D) maybe quit looking to the viewer and let up on the sample buyin' a little and see about getting big chips instead and see how that works better for you.

The other thing that might help is to take a look at LRV. Here's more info about LRV. (This link will open a new window.) LRV.

One way to use LRV is to set benchmarks as you are trying colors. Here are the LRVs for the colors on the table right now. You can see that you are indeed moving to chips that are lighter than Shaker and Manchester Tan.

If after looking at Barley B. and Gentle C. you still feel the chips are too dark, you might want to nudge up a bit and start pulling chips that have LRV closer to 80-ish instead of the 70-ish range.

Shaker Beige - 55.8
Manchester Tan - 63.9
Barely Beige - 73.5
Gentle Cream - 73.5

Another chip to thro in the mix might be Lambskin 1051, LRV 73.9. In a way, you could say that it's in between Barely B. and Gentle C. If Gentle C. is still too grayed or maybe even greenish and Barely B. ends up looking not grayed enough and maybe too yellow, #1051 might be something to look at.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ben Moore Large Color Chips Registration

Thank you so much--this is by far the best advice I've ever gotten about paint color! I can see now that what I've trying to do with the Personal Color Viewer is to gauge the LRV. I'm definitely going to sign up for large color chips. Thanks again!