AAV ColorLab

AAV ColorLab 1.0 release candidate 2

2009-05-19T16:02:00.004+02:00

I just uploaded release candidate 2, you can find it here or by using the "Downloads" link to the right.

Please: uninstall any previous version of ColorLab before running the 32-bit .msi file. It's now set up to automatically upgrade (and should do so from rc1) but better to be safe.

64-bit notes:

Tested by me only with Vegas Pro 9 on Windows 7.
The x86 and x64 versions should be able to live side-by-side on your system.

Release highlights:

Support for 64-bit Vegas
Disabled effect blending. Will be removed entirely in v1.1.
Fixed ColorLab failing on Intel GPU
Fixed System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException
Fixed out of range levels slider
Fixed shutdown and cleanup when closing Vegas.
New installer package using WiX, hopefully better. (Improved Vista/W7 support too.)

I know one or two reported bugs didn't go into this one, if so, please report your problem by going here. Failing that, you can always e-mail me (see readme) or comment here on the blog.

Hope I can lock down v1.0 soon, there is so much nice stuff in v1.1 around the corner. :)

Edit: You can find the proper RC2 readme file in the Downloads section. I accidentally bundled an old PDF in the installers.

64 bit support

2009-05-13T22:36:00.002+02:00

Posted over at the dev blg about 64-bit Vegas support, and the short version is that it seems to work. I'll release RC2 in two flavors, 32 and 64-bit, then. I'm curious if anyone uses both varieties of Vegas on the same machine, and if so, is it important that the two ColorLab flavors will coexist peacefully? (It should work, just haven't tested it.)

Cheat sheet

2009-05-01T13:05:00.002+02:00

I made a simple cheat sheet for the basic operation of ColorLab, as some users seem confused about the user interface.

From The Aav dev blg

Click the picture, then select Download / Download photo at the top left to save a full sized version.

I will produce more documentation, but also improve the usability of the interface in upcoming versions.

Next steps revised

2009-03-02T23:50:00.000+01:00

(Updated)
I've got a busy time ahead since my family is expanding (!) and want to get v1.0 AND v1.1 out the door as soon as possible.

Therefore my priorities are as such:

Focus on core features.
Trim away obscure and unnecessary functionality.
Move towards a simpler UI with optional "expert" settings.

What's currently in the upcoming v1.1:

New white balance algorithm with Temperature/Tint sliders, like in Ad*be Lightroom/Camera RAW.
Protect Highlights feature for white balance.
Unsharp Mask effect.
Performance improvements on Shader Model 3.0 capable cards.
Optional high precision internal buffers.
Simplified 6-vector user interface (can still switch to old one)
Switchable color space (BT.709, BT.601 with NTSC or PAL primaries)
Improved documentation.
REMOVED: Effect blend levels.
REMOVED: Levels RGBA/RGB target dropdown. (made little sense as it was)

Will likely be cut from v1.1:

~~"Matte" generator for framing the image.~~
~~Smart Blur effect.~~

Comments, wishes or got stories of how you use ColorLab? Send me anything. :)

AAV ColorLab release candidate 1

2009-01-11T19:57:00.005+01:00

Download from Mediafire

Happy belated new year. It's been a busy period for me, but I've finally decided to upload a release candidate for v1.0. If this proves stable, the next one will be the final. After that, new features.

Release highlights

Fixed blend slider in Blur effect.
Fixed order of operations in Adjust. Gamma was being applied after output levels.
Fixed eyedropper cursor.
Added experimental “chroma” option to Blur, will perform chroma blur and leave luma alone (this is done with respect to the BT.709/HD definition of Y’CbCr).
Input levels in Adjust are now a three-arrow slider. The middle handle controls gamma, by setting the desired mid-level. Removed gamma edit box.
Added Preset menus to Adjust, for quick setup.
Freshened up UI and fixed various inconsistencies.

Current known issues

May fail on integrated Intel graphics despite PS 2.0 support.

Please let me know of any problems or successes with this release candidate, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see the documentation).

AAV ColorLab v1.0 beta 6

2008-10-27T16:36:00.011+01:00

Download from Mediafire

(Update: The broken download link has been fixed.)

Here's beta 6, fixing the issue that plagued the last release, and an additional number of other improvements.

From ColorLab b6 screen shots

Release highlights

Beta 4 and earlier projects should be converted properly now.
New B&W user interface.
Fixed B&W color summing algorithm and in particular, the CMY controls were wrong.
Improved eyedroppers for black/white in Adjust/Levels. They no longer clip.
Improved quality in 6-vector and B&W, protection against amplifying CCD noise in very dark areas of the image.
Fixes to other reported and unreported bugs (see readme).

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see the documentation).

Beta 5 issue

2008-10-23T00:37:00.007+02:00

There is a rather disturbing issue in beta 5, in that it fails when loading .vegs made using older versions of ColorLab.

I have therefore removed the download links to beta 5, and am working on a fix for the issue.

If you already downloaded beta 5, it should work fine for new projects.

If you have old projects created with ColorLab beta 4 or earlier, I strongly recommend going back to beta 4 for now.

Update: The issue is fixed along with a few glitches reported by users, and beta 6 will be released as soon as I've done some testing.

If you are sure you won't be affected by this, here is the download link to beta 5 again.

AAV ColorLab v1.0 beta 5

2008-10-21T16:26:00.004+02:00

(Download link disabled)

Here's beta 5 now, with tons of improvements. I know I'm stretching the idea of a "beta" version, but that's gonna change. Further versions leading up to v1.0 will only be bug fixes. The goal now is to get a fully stable v1.0 out the door. So please send me any problems you find. Thanks to everyone who's mailed me so far, it's very encouraging even to get complaints. :)

ColorLab b5 screen shots

Release highlights

Massive ease-of-use improvements to the user interface.
Easy White Balance correction - in the Adjust effect (formerly Levels).
Gamma control in Adjust.
Blur effect. Like the gaussian blur in Vegas but faster.
Fixed using ColorLab from multiple Windows user accounts.
Fixed (hopefully) extraneous keyframes being created.
Dynamic allocation and release of video card memory.
Many fixes and tweaks.
Improved documentation/readme, in PDF accessed through the start menu.

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see the documentation).

What's planned for v1.0?

2008-10-21T16:20:00.003+02:00

Here's the outline of what is planned to go into v1.0:

Bug fixes and tweaks to the range of settings, based on your feedback.
Rectangle-selection for the eyedroppers.
A 64-bit build for Vegas Pro 8.1.
"Linear light" gamma 1.0 RGB space support (you can see the checkbox in b5 already).

The latter two items are depending on whether I succeed in building a 64-bit version (Sony has no explicit 64-bit SDK and is unwilling to talk about it), and whether I find a way to store project-wide settings. Without this, the Linear gamma setting would be keyframed and thus annoying to use.

Fix: ColorLab on 64 bit Windows

2008-09-22T23:28:00.002+02:00

I've been chasing a particularly depressing problem the last few days, which involved ColorLab crashing Vegas on my single core machine. Well, it turns out it wasn't my bug.

If you get a fatal error message about an exception in Vegas the instant you open the ColorLab user interface dialog (e.g. when just adding the effect), AND you are running good old 32-bit Vegas on Windows XP x64 Edition, then this hotfix from Microsoft may help you.

The problem is described in this KB article.

I had the problem in Vegas 8.0b, 8.0c as well as the trial of Vegas Movie Studio 9, it'll probably manifest itself in other versions as well. Just putting the fix out here on the off-chance that someone runs into it.

What's next...

2008-09-20T13:46:00.003+02:00

Just a short teaser :). The next version will include a new effect: "Blur", which replicates and extends what the Vegas-builtin "Gaussian Blur" does, using GPU power. I'm quite excited about how fast it turned out. My low-end Quadro NVS140M laptop gfx chip can just about do PAL DV at 25 fps for any blur size. The Vegas blur runs at 13 fps using a single core on the laptops Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU.

Also included will be some bug fixes and a garbage collector for video mem usage.

AAV ColorLab v1.0 beta 4

2008-09-16T14:28:00.004+02:00

Download from Rapidshare (direct)

Here's beta 4 finally, with a new MSI-based installer. This should hopefully work for everyone. You may have to be an administrator to install.

Please uninstall any earlier betas before using this!

Release notes

New installer, hopefully fixes the UI not working.
No longer installing files into Application Data folder, should help with "All users".
Rewrote Direct3D backend for stability and performance.
Minor fixes.
Changes from beta 3 remain, including crash fixes and major features, see earlier post.

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see the readme in the start menu).

I'm working on some better documentation for the next version.

I hope you like it.

Notes about compatibility with earlier versions:

ColorLab won't replace Aav6cc in your old .veg's. This is intentional and due to internal changes. To summarize, please uninstall anything but:

Aav6cc v0.95a (if you need it)
ColorLab v1.0 beta 4 or later.

I will keep beta 4 and onward settings-compatible.

Delays, delays

2008-09-12T15:51:00.002+02:00

Beta 4 is taking longer than I expected, partly due to a flu, university starting, and the fact that I'm cleaning up the code to increase stability.

Stay tuned though.

Installer problem

2008-09-01T21:15:00.003+02:00

Sorry people. I've received several reports of only seeing a blank settings dialog, or none at all. It's likely this is a problem with the installer, which isn't registering the user interface DLL.

I'm changing installer system from NSIS to Windows Installer for beta 4, which should hopefully fix the problem. I'll post a new version as soon as I've ironed out the kinks.

AAV ColorLab v1.0 beta 3

2008-08-31T16:38:00.006+02:00

Download from Rapidshare (direct, slower)

I've been hard at work on beta 3, lots of new stuff in this version.

Please uninstall Aav6cc v1.0 beta 2 before using this!

Release notes

Aav6cc is now named AAV ColorLab!
All-new user interface.
ColorLab has multiple effects: 6-vector, Levels and Black&White.
Levels combines the functionality of the stock effects "Levels" and "Brightness & Contrast".
Black & White works much like the one in Photosh*p.
AAV TransLab bonus plugin is built-in. Can replace a few of the stock Vegas transition with GPU accelerated ones: the standard fade, additive dissolve and subtractive dissolve.
Performance improvements due to better pipelining.
Stability improvements, hopefully no longer crashing for some people.
More effects and transitions will come, eventually! Send me your wish list!

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see readme.txt or About dialog).

I just added the Paypal link to this new site, and I want to thank those who donated for 6cc in the past. It's nice to see that many liked it. I think the plugin (now ColorLab) could be sold for much more than €0, but I'd like it to remain free. Unfortunately, my ability to develop this in my spare time relies on donations coming in, so if you can - please send a contribution, however small.

6cc v1.0 beta 2

2008-08-16T21:26:00.006+02:00

Download from Rapidshare (direct, slower)

Release notes

"Show current mask" and the transparency checkbox now work.
Stability/cleanup fixes.

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see readme.txt or About dialog).

6cc v1.0 beta 1

2008-08-16T17:41:00.006+02:00

I've readied 6cc v1.0 beta 1, I'd love to get feedback on how it works for people.

Download here (click "Free user" and wait a while)

Release notes

Huge performance wins, HD should be perfectly usable.
It requires DirectX 9.0c and a graphics card or onboard graphics chip with support for at least Shader Model 2.0.
No fallback to CPU if the new GPU engine fails in this beta. Be warned, it may crash.
"Show current mask" does not work in this beta.
I have not yet verified that results match the old version perfectly.

Please let me know of your experience with this beta, either as a comment to this post, or by mailing me (see readme.txt or About dialog).

6cc revived

2008-08-16T14:50:00.001+02:00

I've decided to update the 6cc plugin, for a number of reasons. Most importantly, its performance hasn't scaled well over the years as it doesn't take advantage of multi-core CPU:s.

So I'm moving toward version 1.0, taking a whole new approach. It will initially be able to perform the same functions as v0.9.5 did, but with massive performance improvements from using your graphics card to perform the calculations. This "GPU engine" in 6cc will require DirectX 9c and a graphics card or on-board solution capable of Shader Model 2.0 in order to work. Back in 2004 these requirements would have been high, but it's now 2008 and it should be a comfortable baseline.

I've got it working and I'm polishing it up for a test release. More to come.

No new information will be posted at www.moosehill.se, so please update any bookmarks and links.