Let me paint you a picture (no pun intended): You’re about to move into a new place but have yet to paint the rooms to your liking. How do you know which colours will suit you best? Colour swatches are handy but they leave a lot to the imagination. Think of the distraught when you realise that the colour you painted didn’t turn out like how you pictured it to be.

PaintingWalls is a simple iPhone app that will help you to decide there and then. It simulates different paint colours on your walls and lets you make an informed decision. It usually retails for $0.99 but we have 25 codes to give away.

This giveaway runs for a little under 48 hours and will end tomorrow, 21 March 2010 at 2100hrs PST. Grab them quick!

In order to use PaintingWalls, you’ll need an image to work with. Either load it from your camera roll or take a new image. This iPhone application was designed to help simulate different colours on clear, empty walls but it works just fine if the room is furnished, as you can see from the middle image below. I was in Ikea yesterday and took a snapshot of a dimly lit Swedish living room. Tap the colour palette to select any colour (although its best to select a colour that contrasts the original colour of the wall you’re trying to paint), you can change the colour later.

After selecting a colour, tap on an area in the image you wish to fill with paint. The app will try to “fill” the surrounding similar coloured areas. Then here’s the fun part. Tap and hold the screen then move your finger in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction to expand/contract the painted area. Don’t try to expand until the entire wall is filled with paint — it doesn’t work that way. What you should do is tap on an unfilled area and expand the paint separately. Pretty soon, you’ll have the entire wall painted (even with furniture acting as obstacles). Now, you may use the colour palette to select a new colour and it will automagically replace the paint’s colour in your image.

Go ahead and experiment! Change the colour until you find something you like. If the image of your room is poorly lit (like mine was), PaintingWalls has this really cool feature which lets you optimise the paint according to the lighting in the room. When you’re done, it will allow you to save the image, send it to someone via email or share it on Facebook and/or Twitter.

PaintingWalls is a pretty easy tool to use and it really helps cut down on unexpected events when adding colour to your new home. We have 25 codes to share with MakeUseOf readers within the next 48 hours!

How do I become a winner?

It’s simple. Just follow the steps.

STEP 2
	Share this post with your friends by clicking on the Share button on the left.

STEP 3
	In the comments section below, fill in your name, email address, paste the link to your Facebook profile in the URL field and tell us why you’d like to win. Make sure to enter your real email address so that we can contact you if you win!

This giveaway will end on Sunday, 21 March 2010 at 2100hrs PST. Be sure that you grab them quick — first come, first served! Codes will be sent to winners via email after the giveaway is over. Have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Xavier from Enginy Studios for his generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.