Scene-referred RAW
Our own Bayer DNG decoder or Apple’s RAW engine, highlight reconstruction and camera profiles from a ColorChecker.
Color Science Lab
Develop on real light
A floating-point, scene-referred pipeline from the raw mosaic up.
Introducing Color Science Lab
Colour grading that starts at the sensor, with film character measured in microns.
Native SwiftUI, Core Image and Metal for macOS. Six languages. No subscriptions.
Film character
45 film-inspired looks, halation, glow, softness and grain sized in microns on a real film format.
A studio workflow
Sessions, tethered capture, adjustment layers, face retouching, scopes, proof galleries and export recipes.
Every slider works on light values, not on pixels already squeezed into a display. Highlights roll off the way film does, colours stay clean at the edges of the gamut, and the look you build renders the same in the preview, in every export and in Color Science Camera on iPhone.
What’s inside
Everything from card to client.
- 01
Sessions & browsing
Capture One-style sessions with Capture, Selects, Output and Trash folders, ratings, colour tags, albums, smart filters, list and grid views and multi-view.
- 02
RAW develop
Direct Bayer DNG decoding or Apple’s RAW engine, highlight reconstruction, camera profiles from a ColorChecker, and instant re-develop on the GPU.
- 03
Tone & colour
Highlights & Shadows, Clarity, film tone curve, Levels, Curves, Colour Editor with skin tone, Colour Balance, Selective Colour and gamut compression.
- 04
Film character
Vignette, halation, glow & diffusion, softness and organic grain sized in microns, with ten film-stock presets that set them together.
- 05
Layers
Adjustment layers with brush, gradient and luma-range masks — or masks made from the picture: subject, background, sky, skin, eyes.
- 06
Retouch & details
Skin, blemishes, dark circles, teeth and eyes on detected faces; noise reduction, purple fringing, moiré, sharpening and dust removal.
- 07
Tether & studio
USB tethering and hot folders, a shot list, a proof gallery clients rate from their phones, a client view on a second display.
- 08
Export
Recipes with ICC profiles from sRGB to ProPhoto and Rec. 2100 PQ HDR, naming tokens, watermarks, metadata and .cube LUTs.
Works together
One colour engine.
On the Mac and in your pocket.
For Mac
Color Science Lab
The studio: sessions and tethered capture, RAW develop, layers, retouch, scopes, ColorChecker profiles and export recipes with ICC profiles and .cube LUTs.
macOS 15 or later
For iPhone & iPad
Color Science Camera
The camera: single-frame Bayer RAW with no Deep Fusion, the same film looks, Log video on every iPhone, and a gallery where every shot stays editable.
iOS 26 or later
A complete studio,
built on real light.
Sessions that keep up with a shoot
New Project in one click
Numbered capture folders per outfit or set-up, a naming pattern like {session}_{folder}_{counter}, and the first folder made active.
Import from cards
Duplicates marked, backup copy, subfolder tokens, creator, copyright and keywords, a look to apply, eject when done.
Find the keepers
Ratings, colour tags, albums and smart albums by faces, closed eyes, sharpness and bursts.
From the raw mosaic up
Direct Bayer decode
Our own DNG development, or Apple’s RAW engine, with exact re-develop on the GPU after every change.
Highlight reconstruction
Clipped highlights rebuilt instead of turning magenta.
Geometry
Crop, straighten and keystone with cursor tools; crops stay per image when settings are copied.
Precise, perceptual colour
Colour Editor
Eight bands in OkLCh, advanced ranges with soft edges, and a skin-tone mode with uniformity.
Colour Balance
Three-way wheels for shadows, midtones and highlights, worked out in stops of light.
Gamut compression
ACES reference gamut compression keeps saturated colours clean instead of clipping.
Character, not filters
Halation and glow
Red bloom around highlights and Pro-Mist-style diffusion, computed in scene light.
Grain in microns
Fine dye-layer noise plus coarse clumps, sized on a 24 mm frame so preview, export and iPhone match.
Film stocks
Ten emulsion presets that set the tone curve, colour response, split toning, halation and grain together.
Local adjustments that stay put
Masks your way
Brush, eraser, linear and radial gradients, luma range, feather and invert.
Masks from the picture
Subject, background, sky, skin, eyes or lips — or click an object with Select Object.
Crop-proof
Masks are stored on the uncropped image, so they stay in place when you crop or rotate.
Faces and fine detail
Face retouching
Skin, blemishes, dark circles, teeth and eyes on faces found automatically.
Clean-up
Noise reduction, purple fringing and moiré run before any look, with every decoder.
Dust removal
Finds specks in skies and backdrops, and heals spots you click.
Tethered and on set
Tether and hot folder
USB cameras over PTP, or the folder your maker’s tether software writes to.
Shot list and focus check
Each shot name becomes a keyword and a naming token; soft frames are flagged on arrival.
Proof gallery and client view
Clients rate from their phones on the studio Wi-Fi; a clean second-display view follows every render.
Measure, don’t guess
Scopes
Histogram, waveform, vectorscope and tone scope.
Skin tone meter
Average skin hue of a face; later frames that drift more than 5° are flagged.
ColorChecker
Drag the overlay onto a Classic 24 chart; a white-preserving matrix is fitted with ΔE2000 per patch.
One render, every deliverable
Recipes
Web JPEG, Instagram 4:5, TIFF for print, ProPhoto 16-bit, HEIF P3 — check several and export once.
HDR and soft proofing
Rec. 2100 PQ output, and a printer / paper ICC preview with a gamut warning.
LUTs
A 33³ or 65³ .cube of the look for Apple Log or sRGB footage, validated against the shader.
In detail
The whole toolset.
Library & sessions
- Capture, Selects, Output and Trash folders
- Capture folders per outfit or set-up
- Import with backup, duplicates and eject
- Batch rename with tokens, find & replace, from list
- Ratings, colour tags, albums, smart albums
- Variants and named versions
- Recorded actions on ⌃⌥1…9
Tether & capture
- USB tethering over PTP
- Hot folder for maker tether software
- Next-capture naming, adjustments and location
- Shot list written as keywords
- Focus check on arrival
- Optional shutter sound
RAW develop
- Direct Bayer DNG decoder
- Apple RAW engine for other cameras
- Highlight reconstruction
- Camera profiles from a ColorChecker
- Camera looks learned from embedded JPEGs
- Crop, straighten, keystone
Tone & colour
- Exposure, white balance on the Planckian locus
- Highlights & Shadows, Clarity
- Film tone curve, Levels, Curves
- Colour Editor with skin tone
- Colour Balance, Selective Colour
- Black & White, split toning, gamut compression
Film
- 45 built-in looks, your own looks
- Ten film-stock presets
- Vignette, halation, glow & diffusion
- Softness
- Grain sized in microns, with grain types
- Look match to a reference frame
Layers & masks
- Brush, eraser, linear and radial gradients
- Luma range, feather, invert
- Subject, background, sky, skin, eyes, lips
- Select Object by clicking
- Per-layer exposure, colour and clarity
Retouch & details
- Face skin, blemishes, dark circles
- Teeth and eyes
- Noise reduction, purple fringing, moiré
- Sharpening with halo suppression
- Dust detection and spot healing
- Focus view at 100 %
Analyze & proof
- Histogram, waveform, vectorscope, tone scope
- Skin tone meter
- ColorChecker with ΔE2000
- Soft proofing with gamut warning
- Proof gallery over Wi-Fi
- Compare board as an A3 PDF
Export
- JPEG, TIFF, PNG, HEIF; 8 or 16 bit
- sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto
- Rec. 2100 PQ HDR
- Naming tokens, watermark, metadata
- .cube LUTs, 33³ or 65³
- Video grading exported as a LUT
Looks
45 looks, grouped by maker.
Use one as a starting point, save your own, sync them between Macs through iCloud Drive, and take them to the iPhone as .look files.
Kodak-inspired
Portra 160Portra 400Portra 800EktarGoldUltraMaxColorPlusEktachromeKodachromeTri-XT-Max 100T-Max P3200
Fuji-inspired
Pro 400HPro 160NSSuperia 200Superia X-TRA 400C200Natura 1600VelviaProviaAstiaAcros
Agfa
VistaUltraPrecisa CTPrecisa cross-processedAPXScala
Ilford
HP5FP4Pan FDelta 3200SFXXP2
Polaroid
600SX-70667Expired
Cinema
Vision3 250D printVision3 500T printEternaCineStill 800TCineStill 50DBleach bypass
Creative
InfraredPurpleMist
Hand-built approximations inspired by the commonly described character of these film stocks. They are not calibrated emulations — no spectral or measured film data is used — and are not affiliated with the manufacturers.
Specifications
Technical details.
- Requires
- macOS 15 or later
- Pipeline
- Floating-point, scene-linear, rendered on the GPU (Metal) at full resolution; preview and export share one code path
- Input
- Bayer DNG (own decoder), camera RAW via Apple’s engine, JPEG, HEIF, TIFF, PNG; Apple Log video clips
- Export formats
- JPEG, TIFF (8/16-bit), PNG (8/16-bit), HEIF
- Colour profiles
- sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB (1998), ProPhoto RGB, Rec. 2100 PQ (HDR)
- LUT export
- .cube, 33³ or 65³; Apple Log, sRGB or log2-shaper input
- Calibration
- ColorChecker Classic 24, CIEDE2000, white-preserving 3×3 fit
- Tethering
- USB (PTP) and hot folder
- Languages
- English, Türkçe, Español, Français, Deutsch, Italiano
- Privacy
- No data collected. Read more →
FAQ
Common questions.
Does the app modify my original files?
Never. Adjustments, ratings and metadata live in the session file; originals are only read.
Why does my image look different from Capture One or Lightroom?
Each engine has its own camera profiles and base curve. Use Learn Capture One Look or a ColorChecker profile to bring them close.
Can I use the app without a session?
Yes — File ▸ Open Image… works on single files. Sessions add browsing, ratings, albums and batch export.
How do I sync looks between Macs?
Looks ▸ Sync ▸ Sync Looks via iCloud Drive…, then choose the same folder on every Mac.
How do I see what one adjustment is doing?
Hold ⌥ while you drag its slider: the viewer splits into that tool off (left) and on (right) until you let go. Y toggles the whole image before / after.
Can a client rate images without the app?
Yes: Image ▸ Share Proof Gallery… makes a web page they open on a phone or laptop on the same Wi-Fi; their ratings, tags and comments arrive live.
How do I preview a print?
Develop ▸ Output ▸ Soft proof profile: pick the printer / paper ICC profile, then Soft proof (⌥⌘Y). Gamut warning (⇧⌘Y) greys colours the paper cannot reproduce.
Ready to develop?
Pair it with Color Science Camera to take your looks out shooting.
Requires macOS 15 or later