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. An Analysis tab is coming soon in beta.
• 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:

• 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).
• 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.
• 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, but during beta we recommend working with a single video layer plus audio.

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.

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.