User Guide - Color Grading and Film Emulation Presets
Get started with presets. Then make them your own.
One of the most powerful features of the application is the vast array of presets available to you. These presets are designed to provide you with a quick and effective starting point for your color grading journey. Presets take full advantage of the lightning fast rendering engine and film derived math driving Color.io. There is no shame in starting a grade from a preset. Pros do it all the time. And with the presets in Color.io, you're always starting with an incredibly strong foundation because every preset is build with utmost attention to detail and realism to get the most out of the color engine and ultimately your images.
Let's explore how to discover, apply, and customize these presets to match your photographic vision.
Explore Presets
The first step towards utilizing presets is discovering them. In Color.io, you'll find an easy-to-navigate Preset Browser with an extensive collection of presets ranging from classic film emulations to modern grading styles. To open the Preset Browser, simply click on the 'Presets' button at the top of the color grading panel. You'll see a gallery of preset files, each representing a unique look or film emulation. Click to preview the preset's effect on your current image. Use the ← → left and right arrow keys, to quickly cycle through all presets in the stack. This interactive preview feature allows you to quickly discover presets that match your creative intent.
To apply a preset, simply hit Return on your keyboard or click out of the Preset Browser. To "un-apply" a preset click on the selected preset to de-select. To close the Preset Browser without applying your changes simply hit ESC on your keyboard.
Customize Presets
While presets offer a valuable starting point, they are usually not the final destination. Color.io encourages you to make each preset your own. After applying a preset, you can customize it using the powerful tools provided by the color engine.
You'll find these tools in the color grading panel. Each tool manipulates a different aspect of your image's color, providing you with incredibly fine grained control over the look of your images. Feel free to experiment with the settings of each tool to see how they influence the color grading. Remember that your changes are never permanent. The history timeline at the top of the color grading panel records every action you take. This means you can always go back to the original preset or any step along the way, giving you the freedom to experiment without fear of losing your progress.
Saving and sharing your own presets
Once you've created a look that you are sure you want to reuse in the future, go to Export and create a "Preset URL". This will copy a link to your clipboard that you can save for later or share with others. Anyone with the Preset URL can launch Color.io with your custom settings. Because privacy is at the heart of Color.io, your images are never included in these links.
Sharing presets with third party apps
One of the great things about color grades in Color.io is that they're not just for Color.io – they're universal. This means you can use them in a variety of other applications too, including Photoshop, many photo editing apps, and almost all video editors and color grading programs like Davinci Resolve.
To share a preset or a custom grade with a third party app, all you have to do is export it as a 3D LUT. In essence, 3D LUTs are like a universal language for color. They allow you to create, save, and share your color grading work across multiple platforms and projects. You can apply the exact same color grade you created in Color.io to an image in Photoshop, or to a video in Adobe Premiere Pro, and many other apps. This is a powerful way to ensure consistency in your color grading across different projects and different software. You could create a 'signature look' in Color.io and then use it everywhere else!
How film emulation presets work
The film emulation presets in Color.io match real film to a very high degree of accuracy. Much higher than most LUTs or plugins in other engines and there's a simple technical reason for this that is deeply embedded into the design philosophy behind the color engine driving Color.io:
Color.io uses a an approach to color grading that is rooted in the mathematical principles of film. Traditional film emulation LUTs are often created from sampled data and act as a "black box," meaning they apply a set of color transformations to an image without allowing for any modification of the individual parameters that define those transformations. These LUTs attempt to emulate the response of film to light, but they offer very limited control to the user.
In contrast, Color.io's engine uses what could be considered a "film-derived math" approach. This means that the engine simulates the non-linear light response of film, with each control driven by this underlying model. It yields similarly realistic film emulation results as data derived LUTs, but with the crucial difference that every parameter is fully adjustable. This granular control allows you to get the look you want without being confined to the rigid transformations of typical LUTs. This empowers you to modify every preset, build your own film emulations and ultimately create better looking images - because at the end of the day, the image is what it's all about.
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.
