Color.io - behind the scenes.
Hey, I'm Jonathan. It’s just me here at Color.io. No big team, no fancy office - just... me, usually working from a café somewhere. I write every line of code, design everything you see, and answer every support email myself.
That said, Color.io is not a side project. It's a full-hearted investment of vision, labor and love - and it's trusted by over 200.000 color-obsessed image makers around the world. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place!
Color.io is proudly Small-Tech and 100% independent. It is a tool for artists like you and me, and no-one else.
I began my creative journey as a soundtrack composer (you might still find some of my old tracks on SoundCloud), dabbled in VFX for a while and tried to make it as an independent filmmaker but somehow got so carried away with the technical stuff that I ended up doing color science and writing code for the past 10 years of my life. But the image is and always will be at the heart of what I'm doing. Every now and then I still get around to creating images myself - a weird mix of photography, digital matte painting, some 3D and long hours of pixel f*cking - you know the drill. Here's some of the work that I'm most proud of:
I'm telling you all this because Color.io is not a startup. It's a tool for artists like you and me - simple as that. I'm approaching software design and writing code with the same mindset I approach my music or my art. Well, it is a little more collaborative and I depend much more on feedback, bug reports and ideas. But it's all still guided by some kind of artistic intuition rather than boardroom meetings with shareholders. I'm not chasing venture capital or outside investors. I turned down $6 million in funding just to keep this little tool independent (and awesome). You, the users, are the only stakeholder here. If I’d taken the money, Color.io would probably have cloud storage and AI subtitles by now (even though... it doesn’t even do video?!).
And when Apple came knocking (that did happen), I said yes - but at a price so ridiculous they obviously walked away. Which, was honestly my Plan B (Plan A was to buy an actual island in the Caribbean, because I love the ocean!)
Jokes aside, the lifeblood of Color.io is our small but dedicated user community, spreading the word, and championing our vision of color that helps us tell our stories!
Every About Page Needs a Manifesto. So here it is.
Built on open standards
Color.io is browser-native software. I hope this level of openness and access will extend far beyond color grading or photography. We can’t allow hardware, specialized tools, and titles to block that progress. As technologists, we have a responsibility to make it so that more people can use our platforms, not fewer. What I’ve seen over the past ten years is that the browser is the medium to ignite that impact.
No vendor lock-in
Color.io outputs color-managed 3D Lookup Tables, an open standard compatible with applications everywhere. These files are your creative legacy — they live on your local device and won't be locked to a single platform or tied to any tool or service. This will make them stand the test of time. Your work should be yours, forever.
Enterprise-grade infrastructure
While Color.io may be the brainchild of a solo developer, the standards are anything but singular. I've invested heavily in enterprise-grade resources, ensuring application, authentication and data servers are always up and running. Color.io is served through a tier-1 global network with over 3000 ISPs on 6 continents. I've spent three years building a WebGL render engine and a reactive web component framework to bring industry-standard image processing to the web with scalability and truly groundbreaking performance.
Color.io has been featured by Apple and is used on major blockbuster movies, independent films, video games and TV-shows by the world's leading brands and creatives. The signature analog color processing is embedded into enterprise-level video software and countless presets and LUTs available from third party vendors.
Additional Resources
- Imprint and boring legal stuff
- Color.io - Reddit Announcement
- How I created Match AI (my first app before Color.io)
Color.io App
With Color.io you can edit images and build 3D LUTs with a powerful online raw developer and analog film look designer for photographers and filmmakers. Craft stunning film color in record time that works for any camera, in any software and on any device, directly in your browser.
