Color Intelligence releases Colourlab Ai 3
Originally posted on 11 January 2024 for the beta, and updated for the official release.
Color Intelligence has released Colourlab Ai 3, the new version of the AI color grading tool.
The update rebuilds the software’s colour engine from scratch, providing “10 times the precision” of the previous release, and makes it available for Windows as well as macOS.
A ‘truly transfomative’ AI-based next-gen colour grading system
First released in 2020, Colourlab Ai is an AI-based colour grading system.
The software is capable of matching the grade of a sequence of shots to a reference shot or image to a quality described in reviews as equivalent to the first pass by a human colorist.
Co-developed by colorist Dado Valentic, founder of training provider Colour Training, the technology has been adopted in the broadcast, VFX and games markets.
Users of Colourlab Ai and its sibling tools, looks design plugin Look Designer and film grain generator Grainlab, now include Disney, Electronic Arts, HBO and Netflix.
Colourlab Ai 3: rewritten AI color engine with ’10 times’ more precision
Color Intelligence describes Colourlab Ai as a “complete reimagining” of the software, rebuilding the AI colour engine from scratch.
The updated engine “incorporates encoding, decoding, and tokenizing systems from LLM in a novel way” and is described as having “10 times the precision” of that in Colourlab Ai 2.
At the time of writing, there is no feature list for version 3 in the online documentation, but other features mentioned on the Color Intelligence website include:
- AI Reference Library
- Showlook Library
- New iPhone 15 Pro profiles
- New Log Encoding
- New Auto Balance
- New Auto Exposure
Now available on Windows, and syncs with DaVinci Resolve
Other changes since Colourlab Ai 2 is that the software is now available for Windows as well as macOS.
In addition, live sync of grading with DaVinci Resolve is now available in the Creator edition of the software as well as with more expensive Pro and Studio subscriptions.
Live sync with After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro is due later this month.
Updated 15 April 2024: Colorlab Ai 3 is now officially out of beta, according to Color Intelligence’s latest email newsletter.
At the time of writing, the product webpage on the website has not been updated, and still lists live sync with After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro as ‘coming January 2024’.
However, all three are mentioned in a separate webpage offering discount pricing for NAB 2024.
It isn’t clear whether the Pro edition, which adds support for RAW camea files, SDI connections and Tangent control surfaces, has also been updated, or only the Creator edition.
Users on the product’s Discord server are reporting that the current build does not load RAW files on Windows. We’ve contacted Color Intelligence and will update if we hear back.
Pricing and system requirements
The Creator edition of Colourlab Ai 3 is compatible with Windows 10 and macOS 13.0+. New perpetual licenses cost $299. Rental costs $15/month or $150/year.
Perpetual licenses of the Pro edition cost $599. Subscriptions cost $39/month or $299/year.
Perpetual licenses of the Studio edition, which comes with Look Designer and Grainlab, cost $999. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $499/year.
Read an overview of the new features in Colourlab Ai 3 on Color Intelligence’s website
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