Chromamatch continues to evolve, with this new release, new features and enhancements have been added to help with the workflows and simplify things.
What’s changed in this release
Bug Fixes
- Fix: ChromaMatch now finds an earlier ChromaMatch layer in a document that isn’t the active one.
New Features or Enhancements
- New “Full distribution” match: Global mode can now reshape the image’s whole color distribution to fit the palette, instead of only its average and range, so results look much closer to the reference.
- The panel is simpler. It keeps only the Webpage title, the pages to export and a Debug checkbox.
- The dialog remembers your last choices. It opens with the settings you last confirmed with OK.
- The Plugins menu’s Export Document command opens the same dialog, just like the panel button.
- Match switch: a new control under Mode picks between Mean & spread (the default) and Full distribution.
- Split tone: it’s turned off in Full distribution, which already gives shadows and highlights their own colors.
- Saved looks: a layer made with Full distribution reopens with exactly the same look, and older layers look the same as before.
- More accurate layers: the applied Color Lookup layer follows the preview more closely in this mode.
- Test harness: it can now compare the two match options and shows how close each result is to the palette.
- Enhancement: Swatch colors can now be changed in the editor by typing a hex code, picking from Photoshop’s color picker, or nudging lightness, chroma and hue with − / + (Shift-click for bigger steps).
- A color nudged past what sRGB can show is pulled back in at the same lightness, and the editor tells you when that happens.
- Changing a swatch’s color keeps its weight, its on/off state and its swatch-to-swatch pairs.
- Harmony palettes: build a complementary, analogous or triadic palette from one seed color (typed, the foreground color, or a selected swatch), no reference image needed.
- Built-in light and dark shades: every harmony comes with them, so matching a photo to it keeps its contrast.
- Rotate hue: a slider turns the hue of the whole palette at once, and dragging back to 0° gets the original colors back.
- Selection as a mask: with a selection active, ChromaMatch matches and recolors only the selected area and masks the new layer to it. Uncheck Selection only under the preview to use the whole layer.
- Palette from a selection: check Selection only under the document picker to sample the palette from just part of an open image, such as the sky.
- Batch matching: apply one palette to several selected layers or to every open document at once. Each image gets its own correction, so a whole shoot ends up with the same look.
- Stop anytime: the batch button turns into Stop while it runs, and a summary at the end lists what was matched, updated, skipped or failed.
- One question for existing layers: if some images already have a ChromaMatch layer, you’re asked once whether to update them all in place or add new ones.
- New exports
- 5³ LUT size: export LUTs at a finer 65³ grid for grading apps, alongside the standard 33³.
- .3dl LUTs: export a look as
.3dlfor Resolve, Nuke, Flame and other grading tools, as well as.cube. - Camera Raw / Lightroom profile: export a look as a profile with an Amount slider, usable on any photo, raw or not.
- More palette formats: save the palette as a PNG strip, CSS variables or JSON, as well as
.ase. - Remembered choices: the panel keeps your export format and size choices between sessions.
- Enhancement: redesigned panel interface, now a new workspace window opens, this helps to make easier the navigation of all the options.
- New “Tone curve” match option: colors still match the way Mean & spread does, but brightness follows a smooth curve fitted to your palette, so shadows and highlights land closer to the reference than with a single overall stretch.
- Saved and reopened like the other options: Apply stores it on the layer and Recent palettes remember it, so a reopened layer gives the same look.
- Sharper preview: pick 48, 64 or 96 cells. The cells stay square and grow with the panel.
- Split view: one larger before/after image with a slider you drag to move the dividing line.
- Reference view: see the image your palette came from next to the result, or the palette itself as color bands when there’s no image.
- Hold to compare: press and hold a button to see the original, then let go to see the look again.
- Remembers your choices: the cell count and view stay as you left them next time.
- Faster redraws: only the parts of the preview that change are redrawn.