Key Concepts
A short tour of the vocabulary you'll see throughout the rest of the docs. Each term gets a tight definition here; deeper pages live in the User Guide and Features sections.
Some of the linked deep-dive pages are still being written. If a link 404s, the term is fully defined on this page — come back to the link once the section is published.
People and projects
User
Every project, reference, and clip in Colourlab Ai 4 belongs to a user. Multiple users can sign in on the same Mac, each with their own data. More on sign-in, switching, and account management in Users.
Project
A project is your top-level container for a single piece of work — a film, a commercial, a photo series, a corporate piece. Projects hold their own clips, references, looks, and timelines. See Projects.
Timeline
Inside a project, a timeline is the sequence of clips you're grading in order. A single project can have multiple timelines — for example, a feature edit and its trailer. See Timelines (coming soon).
Media
Reference
A reference is a single inspirational image — the visual target you want a clip to feel like. References are saved physically on disk inside ~/Documents/X03/ (the Reference Library) and indexed in the Colourlab Ai 4 database for fast search and analysis. See References.
Clip
A clip is one of your video files — the source media you're grading. Clips live inside a project. See Clips.
Bin
A bin is a folder inside a project for organizing references or clips. Bins can be named, and rearranged like normal folders. See Bins (coming soon).
Power bin
A power bin is a bin that's shared across projects. References or clips you put in a power bin are accessible from every project on this machine — useful for house looks, recurring reference, signature looks, or any media you reach for repeatedly. See Power Bins (coming soon).
Looks and the agent
Look
A look is the grade applied to a clip — the full set of adjustments that take it from its source state to its graded state. See Looks (coming soon).
Match
A match is what happens when Colourlab Ai 4 transfers a reference's look onto one of your clips. Matching is the speed claim of Colourlab Ai 4 — it runs in milliseconds, in 4K, in real time. See Matching (coming soon).
Look building
Look building is the agentic process by which Colourlab Ai 4 constructs a look for you. The AI agent takes a reference, an anchor, or your stated intent, and outputs a finished look that you can refine or apply across a timeline. See Look Building (coming soon).
Anchor
An anchor is the single visual point of reference that Colourlab Ai 4 sorts everything else around. You can designate one image as the anchor from inside references, from inside clips, or directly on the timeline — but only one anchor is active at a time. Once it's set, the anchor becomes the basis for sorting your clips by similarity, colour, or exposure. None of those sort views are available until an anchor has been chosen. See Anchors (coming soon).
Intent
Intent is the description you give the agent when you don't have a reference image to point at. Tell it what you want to feel — dramatic, cold morning light, late-summer afternoon, intimate — and the agent proposes looks that match. See Intent (coming soon).
Colour management and interchange
iNode
An iNode is Colourlab Ai 4's input colour transform — the equivalent of an IDT (Input Device Transform) in standard colour-management vocabulary. You apply an iNode to footage that needs to be converted into the working colour space — log-encoded clips, for example, or any source that doesn't already live in your timeline's colour space. See iNode (coming soon).
oNode
An oNode is the output counterpart to iNode — the equivalent of an ODT (Output Device Transform). It sits at the top of the timeline and tells Colourlab Ai 4 what colour space your graded output should be delivered in. The standard setting is Rec. 709. See oNode (coming soon).
OTIO
OTIO — short for Open Timeline IO — is an open metadata format for exchanging timeline data between applications. Colourlab Ai 4 supports OTIO for both import and export, so timelines can move cleanly in and out of other tools in your pipeline. See OTIO (coming soon).
Analysis and credits
Basic analysis vs. detailed cinematography analysis
Colourlab Ai 4 analyses every reference image at two levels of depth.
- Basic analysis is free, runs locally, and is instantaneous. It powers browsing the Reference Library, quick previews, and direct matches.
- Detailed cinematography analysis is deeper, server-side, and credit-based. It's what the AI agent uses when it builds looks for you. If you're driving Colourlab Ai 4 with intent or asking the agent to grade a sequence, you're using detailed analysis.
See Analysis (coming soon) for what each tier actually computes.
Credits
Credits are the unit that meters detailed cinematography analysis. Subscription and Perpetual licenses include 800 credits per month; the free trial includes 100. You can buy top-up packs of 800 credits for $19, and purchased credits never expire. See Cinematography Analysis Credits for the full pricing table.
PIA engine
The PIA engine — short for Perceptual Image Analyzer — is the vision system at the heart of Colourlab Ai 4. It's how the application sees your references and clips the way you do. The PIA engine produces both tiers of analysis: the free basic tier, and the credit-metered detailed tier. See PIA Engine (coming soon) for the technical details.
What's next
You've got the vocabulary — put it to work.
- Quick Start — grade your first shot in five minutes.
- User Guide — day-to-day workflows that use these terms.
- Features — deep dives into each module.