User Guide
Color Tab

The Color Tab

The Color tab is where the actual grading work happens in Colourlab Ai 4 — references and clips funnel into it, the timeline lives inside it, and everything you do to a clip's look happens here. Because it carries so much, the Color tab is divided into a handful of dedicated panels: a top bar, a left panel, a central viewer, a right-side panel for grading tools, and a timeline at the bottom.

This page is the map. Each panel has its own deep-dive page; the ones that aren't written yet are flagged as coming soon.

The top bar

The top bar runs along the top of the Color tab and holds the project-level controls.

  • Project name and back-out — shows which project you're inside; click to return to the project selection screen.
  • Tab switcher — flip between References, Clips, and Color and Analysis tab.
  • Undo/Redo buttons
  • Help - Link to Documentation and Feedback Form
  • Bypass — turn the current grade on and off to A/B against the source. (The same control you used in the Quick Start.)
  • oNode output — the oNode (coming soon) that defines the output color space of the timeline. Rec. 709 is the standard.
  • Settings — project-level settings (frame rate, resolution, aspect ratio, and more). See Settings.
  • Save — force-write the current state to the database. Colourlab Ai 4 saves continuously in the background; the button is here for peace of mind.
  • Export — render and export the timeline. See Export.

The left panel

The left panel is your media browser, brought into the Color tab so you can pull a reference or grab a clip without changing context. It gives you access to:

  • Color Grading Style
  • References and their bins.
  • Clips and their bins.
  • Timeline — the list of timelines in this project, and the one you currently have open.
  • Audio — coming soon.
  • Titles — coming soon.

It's the same References and Clips views you saw on their own tabs — see References and Clips for the full set of operations.

The viewer

The central panel is the main image viewer. It shows you the frame the playhead is over, with:

  • Current clip timecode and timeline timecode displayed alongside the image.
  • The standard transport controls (play, pause, scrub).
  • An aspect ratio toggle between 16:9 and 9:16.
  • A full-screen button for distraction-free viewing.

The right panel

The right side of the Color tab holds the actual grading tools, organised into tabs:

  • AI Grading — talk to the color-grading agent. Describe what you want and the agent proposes grades. See Look Building (coming soon) and Intent (coming soon).
  • Color Grade — match a clip to a reference, run auto-match selection, Match All across the timeline, and adjust the matching parameters. See Matching (coming soon).
  • Fine-tune — fine-grade controls. Coming soon in public beta.
  • Film Emulation — film stock emulation. Coming soon in public beta.
  • Properties — per-clip properties. Re-adjust the iNode if you need to change the input transform after import, and tweak the clip's geometry: zoom, pan, flip, and similar.

The timeline

The bottom of the Color tab is your timeline. It has its own row of controls along the top, then the clip lanes below.

Timeline controls

  • Sort view — sort and filter clips on the timeline by shot type, location type, or content (face, sky, foliage, and so on).
  • Learn - saves current reference for look with all color panel adjustments + current frame for similarity reference as a Style Reference
  • Add to Style - Saves current frame as Look and Similarity reference to Style
  • Save as Reference — convert the currently selected clip into a reference and add it to your library, in one click. Useful for capturing a quick visual idea straight from the timeline.
  • Auto Reference - same function as Auto Reference in Color Grade Window just placed for convenien on/off on the timeline
  • Magnet — pull clips together so they snap edge-to-edge without gaps.
  • Zoom — zoom the timeline view in and out.

Layers

The Colourlab Ai 4 timeline supports multiple video layers. Just right mouse click on on of the track headers to add video or audio track

Clips on the timeline

We support editing features — covered in their own page.

Right-click any clip on the timeline to open the per-clip actions menu.

  • Set as Anchor - sets current clip as Anchor
  • Reset All color grades
  • Learn - add to Style with Look Reference and current clip reference as similarity reference
  • Versions - automatically saved last for color grades on the clip. Select here or press 1-4 on the keyboard to select one grade
  • Export Still - exports current frame as a still image
  • Export LUT... - export current color grade as a 3DLUT
  • Add to Bin - adds current clip to Clips bin
  • In Bin - indicates to what bin does current clip belong to
  • Split at playhead - split clip at current frame - also '' shortcut
  • Remove - removes clip from the timeline

Where to go next

The next pages in the User Guide dive into each of the panels above — pick the one closest to what you're trying to do, or read them in order:

  • The top bar — every control in the top bar, left to right.
  • The left panel — the inline References and Clips browsers inside the Color tab.
  • The viewer — timecodes, playback, keyboard shortcuts, aspect-ratio toggle, full-screen.
  • AI Grading panel — chat with the agent, preview suggested looks, anchor a frame to the conversation.
  • Color Grade panel — Match and Match All, luminance / chrominance / saturation / master-intensity sliders, the pinned reference, Reset, Auto-reference.
  • Properties panel — re-pick the iNode and adjust clip geometry (scale, position, rotate, flip).
  • Timeline — editable timeline: trim, split, reorder, multi-select, perceptual sort by anchor, filter by shot type / location / content, Save as Reference.
Left PanelColor Grade