matching ceiling paint is no different than matching any other painted surface. Many paint supply stores now have a scanner which, if you bring in a decent sized paint chip of the exisiting material, will scan it and then produce a recipe for a custom blended paint that should be close to the existing. The store will then mix you up a batch.

Absent the ability to scan a chip, you need to note the finish, flat/gloss/semi-gloss/egg shell, etc. Most ceilings are painted flat. Also look at the color charts to see the closest match. Lastly, you might consider doing a couple of spots and verify that your results are good before doing them all.

If it's water stains that you're covering, you'll liklely need to prime first. Loose/peeling paint should always be removed before recoating.

Good luck and HTH

How long has the ceiling paint been there?

Do you have a smooth or textured ceiling?

Is there damage? If so, describe the damage.

If it's older than a year, even the identical paint may not match it enough to be an invisible repair.

Michael

You'll be lucky if they can match it. It is extremely difficult to do it by eye.

I recently repainted the ceilings. And, it was fine when I was finished. But, there was a poor patch job done years ago which I finally decided to fix. However, I knew I didn't have enough left over ceiling paint to put three coats on it. But, I still had enough to bring it to Home Depot, where I had bought the first ceiling paint and asked them to match it.

For the first batch, I had tweaked to try to match it to the other ceilings. So, the formula on the can was no longer true, but I figured with paint leftover in the can, they should be able to match it.

It wasn't even close. Its so off, that I think I might just have to repaint everything with this different colored ceiling paint.

I had some aged exterior paint matched by a local hardware store. I brought in a chip of the old paint that I scraped of. It is my understanding that they can match a dried color more easily than matching paint in a can.

Of course white is probably the most difficult color to match.