Many inorganic pigments contain heavy metals hazardous to health and environment. Much attention has been devoted to the quest for nontoxic alternatives based on rare-earth elements. However, the computation of colors from first principles is a challenge to electronic structure methods, especially for materials with localized f-orbitals. Here, starting from atomic positions only, we compute the colors of the red pigment cerium fluorosulfide as well as mercury sulfide (classic vermilion). Our methodology uses many-body theories to compute the optical absorption combined with an intermediate length-scale modelization to assess how coloration depends on film thickness, pigment concentration, and granularity. We introduce a quantitative criterion for the performance of a pigment. While for mercury sulfide, this criterion is satisfied because of large transition matrix elements between wide bands, cerium fluorosulfide presents an alternative paradigm: the bright red color is shown to stem from the combined effect of the quasi-2D and the localized nature of 4f states. Our work shows the power of modern computational methods, with implications for the theoretical design of materials with specific optical properties.functional materials | strongly correlated electrons | Mott insulator | dynamical mean field theory L ight propagating inside a heterogeneous solid experiences (i) absorption and (ii) scattering. The light that is not absorbed is diffusely reflected and responsible for the perceived color. The visual appearance of a material is, hence, determined by selective absorption of light and sufficient (back)scattering. For a material to be, e.g., a luminous red pigment, two criteria must, thus, be satisfied. First, its absorption edge should be located at the appropriate energy (∼2.1 eV) so that the red component of the visible spectrum is not absorbed. Second, the absorption edge should be sharp so that most other photons within the visible range (green and blue) are absorbed.The computation of these effects from first principles is faced with three fundamental difficulties. First, in view of the sensitivity of the human eye, the optical gap must be obtained with a precision of at least 100 meV. Conventional electronic structure methods yield a well-documented underestimation of the gap of conventional semiconductors. Second, the localized 4f states, which play a crucial role in optical properties of rare earth-based pigments (1-3), are poorly described by standard density-functional theory (4) or even GW approaches (5). Third, a realistic assessment of the coloration of a pigment must take into account scattering properties depending on concentration, granularity, and film thickness. Ab initio simulations so far have not ventured beyond calculating the optical conductivity of infinite bulk samples (refs. 6 and 7 discuss organic molecules). In this article, we address all these issues and develop a general methodology for the prediction of the color of narrow-band materials.We investigate cerium fluorosulfide (CeSF...