Hey everyone! I'm excited to introduce you to a passion project that's been keeping me busy for nearly a year - a color grading and film emulation web app called Color.io (https://app.color.io). It's desktop-only for the moment but merging the new engine with my other, mobile first app (match.color.io), is in the pipeline.
Color.io is the result of my long standing frustration with how color tools behave in most editing and color grading software, especially on the photographic end. It’s much easier to create completely unnatural looking colors than it is to truly enhance an image in a subtle and film-like way. Most apps work around their engines’ color transform shortcomings by exposing some kind of profile or 3D LUT interface that allows for arbitrary 3D color mappings to be applied to images. The problem with profiles and LUTs however is that they’re a black box and offer limited creative control.
My app is meant to act as a middle man in this color process. I wrote a custom color engine on top of ACES (hand ported to WebGL) that uses custom color models and transform operations that are much more suitable for creative color manipulation than cone models like HSL. The engine is controlled by my library of interface tools like custom spline interpolators, color wheels, 2D draggables and more. I also ported a custom libRAW build to web assembly for a logarithmic raw development workflow.
The project is still very much in its early stages, and the response since the soft launch has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm keen on using this momentum to make the app better. So, your feedback would be hugely appreciated! Tell me about the features you'd like to see, the ones you're loving, and anything you think needs improvement (all code, design, marketing is a solo gig so I'm sure there's lots to do!)
Find me on Twitter (@MON0KEE, https://twitter.com/MON0KEE) or more frequently on Instagram (@monokee, https://instagram.com/monokee). I'd love to hear from you!