Baselight
FilmLight Ltd. · Coding
Baselight is FilmLight's color grading and finishing system for film, TV and commercials. It runs on dedicated hardware or Apple macOS, with tools like X Grade reshaping how colorists work.
About Baselight
What Is Baselight
Baselight is a professional color grading software and finishing system built by FilmLight, a British company that has shipped dedicated grading platforms for more than 20 years. Colorists use it to shape the look of feature films, episodic TV, commercials and broadcast content. The system spans several products: software-only Baselight for macOS in S and M editions, the workstation-class Baselight ONE, and the expandable Baselight TWO and Baselight X systems used by large post houses.
The software sits over a layer architecture with implicit alpha handling and a multitrack timeline. A single scene can hold hundreds of mattes and grades, which is why studios lean on it for effects-heavy projects where tracking, masks and version control pile up. Recent versions such as Baselight v7 add machine learning tools for faces, segmentation and depth.
The main catch is the barrier to entry. Baselight is priced for professionals and facilities, not hobbyists. The macOS editions need a recent Apple Silicon Mac with a fast external cache drive, and hardware systems cost far more. A public API doesn't exist, but the software reads OpenFX plugins and its own scene formats.
Getting Started
- Download the free 14-day trial of Baselight for macOS, or contact a FilmLight reseller for a hardware system.
- Set up a Mac Studio or Mac Pro with 64GB or more unified memory and a fast external NVMe cache drive.
- Conform your footage and load it into a scene, then build a grade layer by layer.
- Use X Grade for primary work and Chromogen for look development, adding mattes where a correction needs to be selective.
- Render through the local render queue, or submit to a remote queue on Baselight M.
Product Information
A quick look at Baselight's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Professional colorists
- Post houses and studios
- Freelance colorists
Tasks
- Feature film grading
- Look development
- Beauty and skin work
- HDR and SDR finishing
Scenarios
- Running a busy grading suite
- Matching offline to a final conform
- Finishing a series episode
Key features
X Grade
X Grade is a primary correction tool that lets a colorist make several localized and complex changes in one layer, without building a key or matte first. It moves color gently and avoids the folds in color space that make other tools risky to reuse. That means a grade can be copied to a shot with a totally different palette and still hold up.
Chromogen
Chromogen is a look development tool rather than a grading one. It builds scene-referred looks that respond to wide-dynamic-range camera data, the way engineering a new film stock would. You can reorder stages like color saturation and highlight bleaching, and FilmLight ships recreations of classic looks as starting points.
Face Track
Face Track uses a machine learning model to find and follow faces through a scene. It attaches a polygon mesh to each face so tools like Paint and Shapes bend with the movement. A correction made on one shot can be pasted across a whole sequence, which cuts down repetitive beauty work.
Multitrack Timeline
The Baselight timeline holds stacked grades across multiple tracks, with a processing tree overlay that shows the node structure behind the view. Tracks can be collapsed and grades locked for trim passes, so long projects stay readable.
Matte and Channel System
New matte tools build and refine masks, and a channel system handles hundreds of mattes including cryptomatte and externally generated channels. An upgraded Edge Filer and Matte Refiner recover fine edge detail on hair and soft transitions.
Depth Tools
A depth map generator, Depth Keyer and depth-aware Haze and Bokeh operators use depth data to grade by distance and simulate atmospheric or lens effects. FilmLight says these let colorists shape depth-driven looks without leaving the grade.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Industry-proven tools such as X Grade and Chromogen that fewer rival systems match.
- Flexible licensing on macOS, from a single day up to a full year.
- Handles complex, effects-heavy timelines with hundreds of mattes in one scene.
- Strong multi-user workflow on Baselight M and hardware systems, pairing colorists and assistants.
Cons
- No public API, so pipelines can't drive it programmatically the way some tools allow.
- Hardware systems like Baselight TWO and X cost far more than the macOS editions, so it's aimed at facilities.
- The macOS editions need a recent Apple Silicon Mac and a fast external cache, which raises the real cost of entry.
- Pricing is quoted on request for paid tiers, so you can't budget without contacting a reseller.
Frequently asked questions
Baselight is used to color grade and finish film, TV, commercials and broadcast content. Colorists use it to build looks, apply selective corrections with mattes, track faces and deliver HDR or SDR versions of a project.
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