Colourlab AI is the product of Color Intelligence, an independent research company developing artificial intelligence for image and colour processing.
Founded in London in 2018 and subsequently established in Hollywood, we began with a simple question: how could artificial intelligence change the way we understand and process images?
Today, our work supports professional film and television workflows, creative software and imaging technology that runs directly on mobile devices.
Our first client was Warner Bros.
Our research began with a practical challenge: accelerate and automate the creation of dailies, the processed footage filmmakers review throughout production.
Working with Warner Bros., we explored how artificial intelligence could take on demanding, repetitive image-processing tasks while maintaining the standards required by a major studio.
It was a defining beginning for an independent laboratory. Research of this kind had traditionally taken place within large studio facilities. Color Intelligence offered a specialist research partner, bringing together production experience, colour science and new approaches to machine learning.
That relationship established a principle that continues to guide our work: develop technology around real imaging problems, and prove its value in production.
Decades of experience behind the research
Colourlab’s origins reach further back than its founding in 2018.
Our founder, Dado Valentic, established Mytherapy in London in 2004, among the early independent companies working in digital intermediate finishing. His background combined engineering experience at Apple and Sony with the creative and technical demands of film post-production.
As a colourist and colour scientist, Dado contributed to productions including *Game of Thrones*, *Exodus*, *Crazy Rich Asians* and *Marco Polo*. His work on the second season of *Marco Polo* included the colour science behind Netflix’s first HDR production.
At Mytherapy, developing new tools was part of the daily work. Advances in colour management and HDR workflows grew out of the need to solve problems that existing software could not yet address.
Alongside production, Dado pursued research and education, teaching colour science and grading to filmmakers and students around the world.
Artificial intelligence offered a way to extend that work. In 2018, he founded Color Intelligence to investigate its potential.
Experience that helped shape an industry
The company brought together people who had already helped change how moving images are created.
Dado Valentic — Founder
A colourist, colour scientist, educator and researcher whose work connects visual storytelling with software development. His experience in production continues to inform the questions we investigate and the tools we build.
Steve Bayes — Investor and Advisor
Steve played significant roles in the development of Avid Media Composer and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. His experience spans professional editing, product design and the development of software used by generations of filmmakers. He brought that perspective to Colourlab’s ambition to make advanced imaging technology accessible.
Joshua Pines — Scientific Advisor
An Academy-recognised imaging and colour-science expert, Joshua brought extensive experience at Technicolor and Industrial Light & Magic. His understanding of film, digital imaging and production helped connect the company’s research with the standards of professional cinema.
Together, these perspectives helped establish a company grounded in both scientific investigation and the realities of creative work.
We develop the intelligence behind our tools
Our research combines computer science with perceptual science and neuroscience: how images are represented, how people see them, and what makes a transformation feel right.
We design and develop our own neural networks for the specific demands of image and colour processing. This allows us to optimise our models around the tasks they perform, the quality of their results and the hardware on which they run.
That work extends across AI colour matching and grading, colour management, workflow automation, HDR and SDR processing, film emulation and look development.
Some of it becomes software that creators can use directly, including Colourlab AI, Look Designer and Filmlab AI. Other technology becomes part of a partner’s product or production infrastructure through enterprise licensing.
The applications differ. The research foundation connects them.
Technology at work across the industry
More than 3,000 post-production companies worldwide use technology developed by Color Intelligence.
Its reach extends beyond the software carrying our name. Through creative tools and licensed integrations, our research contributes to workflows behind films and television programmes distributed by major studios and streaming platforms.
Professional production remains an essential testing ground. It demands consistency across shots, cameras, formats and delivery requirements, while leaving room for the creative decisions that make each project distinctive.
Those demands shape how we build.
Cinema expertise, running on a phone
As our models became more efficient, we could bring increasingly sophisticated image processing to smaller devices.
Our collaboration with HONOR brings Colourlab’s AI colour-processing technology into mobile imaging, enabling colour grading directly on the device.
It is an important expression of our original purpose: make advanced image processing more accessible while preserving the expertise behind it.
Research developed around the demands of professional cinema can now reach people creating images in everyday life.
Building what comes next
We continue to investigate how artificial intelligence can understand and shape image appearance, and how that intelligence can become useful creative tools.
Our ambition is to give more people access to sophisticated colour and imaging technology, whether they work in a finishing suite, create independently or build the next generation of imaging products.
Bring Colourlab intelligence to your product
We work with enterprise partners on technology licensing and imaging integrations.
If you are developing a product or workflow that could benefit from our research, we would like to hear from you.