Color transfer, explained: what ChromaBlender will do

Photographers rarely start from nothing. There’s almost always a reference: a frame from a film, a photo from a mood board, yesterday’s best shot. The real work is getting your images to live in that reference’s world: its color, its mood, its tone. Done by hand, that’s sliders, comparison squinting, and repetition across every frame of the shoot.

ChromaBlender, currently in the works at the studio, automates exactly that. Point it at a reference image, point it at yours, and it transfers the look: to one image, or to an entire folder in a single batch pass.

Five ways to move a look

Color transfer isn’t one algorithm; different images need different math. ChromaBlender ships five methods: Reinhard statistical transfer, histogram matching, LUT-based transfer, luminance-aware transfer, and selective zone-based transfer. When one method fights an image, another usually agrees with it.

Built for real photography pipelines

• RAW in, quality out: reads CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG and dozens more RAW extensions (~40 in total), and outputs 16-bit TIFF with EXIF metadata preserved.
• Pre-processing where it belongs: exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, and real vibrance controls before the transfer, so the method works on a well-behaved image.
• Judge with your eyes: split-screen and overlay-slider previews.
• Automate it: a full command-line interface for scripting whole-folder grades without opening the UI.

When?

ChromaBlender is not released yet; it’s the companion app to LUTForge, and both make their home at chromablender.com, where launch details will land. If you want a note when it ships, ask us and we’ll remember you.