Touch-up paint way too dark!

I have an issue I hope someone can help me with. A while back I painted my den orange. I got a stain on one of the walls and decided to crack open the same can of paint I used when I first painted the room since I had some left over. I painted over the stain and also touched up a few other areas. The next day I was surprised/annoyed to discover that instead of being orange the paint had dried to more of a brown color. I thought that maybe the paint had gone bad since the lid wasn't on that tightly so I went and bought some fresh paint and used the code off the lid of the original paint can to match my paint. The new paint matched exactly to the small dab of paint on the old can that the store puts on top of each can they mix up.

The weird part is that the new paint is also too dark. I'm really confused. I used this exact same color for all of the other walls so I don't understand why it's so dark compared to the rest of the walls when I try to touch something up. I'm using Colorplace semi-gloss. Each wall had one coat of primer followed by 2 coats of orange paint.

Is there some way of lightening up the paint myself until it matches what is already on the wall?

 

It's possible the paint didn't get full coverage which can cause the paint color to be lighter. Also some brands/colors of paint don't lend themselves to touch up. It is possible to adjust paints to match the wall but it really takes a seasoned painter to mix the paint. I suspect repainting the wall would be your best bet.

 

You mentioned that you'd originally painted the den "a while back". Paints will fade over time and with exposure to sunlight, etc. As MarkSr said, some paints don't touch up easily. It's harder to touch up walls that were painted depending on how long ago they were painted.

 

Well I would repaint that wall but the color is coming out so dark that I'd have to repaint the entire room.

I guess I'll just use trial and error.

 

Would the color difference show up in a pic?
http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html

 

I'll see about including a pic. This room is underground and no sunlight comes in, so I don't think the paint faded. I know the original coat I put on last year certainly wasn't this dark.

All I can figure is that this cheap Walmart paint darkens with each additional coat.

 

You get what you pay for, I would never use this.

 

Sometimes paint will appear to have covered when in fact it has not. At those times the paint will not touch up because the touch up which is an additional coat is the true color of the paint and not the color that is currently on the wall.

I'm pretty sure I've used a gallon or two of Walmart paint before but it's been a long time and I don't remember anything about it one way or another. One of the many reasons a pro uses the same brand of paint [from a paint store] is you get to understand all the little nuances of each line of paint and know how they will work in any given situation.