Baselight is a colour grading and finishing system for film, television, commercials and broadcast, available for Linux and macOS. Its layered timeline supports implicit alpha handling and multiple tracks. In Baselight 6.0, X Grade allows several localized colour corrections within one layer without building a key or matte, while Chromogen is designed for scene-referred looks from wide-dynamic-range camera material. Face Track uses machine learning to locate and follow faces and can copy corrections along a timeline. Version 7 adds matte creation and refinement, a channel system for hundreds of mattes, and Transform Matching for scaling, rotation and translation. On macOS, Baselight S is intended for single freelancers and lacks advanced collaboration tools; Baselight M targets facilities needing multi-user links and connects with Baselight CONFORM and ASSIST. The maker recommends macOS 14–15 or macOS 26 Tahoe, at least 64GB unified memory and an external Thunderbolt NVMe enterprise SSD with at least 8TB reserved for cache. Options include a 14-day Baselight M trial, an unspecified free licence, custom-duration S licences and subscriptions. The S licence starts at $90 for one day; macOS subscriptions are listed from $2500pq per quarter and $7500pa per year.
Who it is for
Baselight S is aimed at single freelancers, while Baselight M suits facilities that need multi-user interconnectivity. Its stated system recommendations point to users with substantial memory and cache-storage capacity.
What is good
- Supports Linux and macOS.
- Includes tools for grading, finishing and matte work.
- Face Track can copy corrections across a timeline.
- Baselight M connects with CONFORM and ASSIST.
- Mac support is listed as 24/7.
What to know first
- Baselight S lacks advanced collaboration tools.
- The maker recommends at least 64GB unified memory.
- The recommended external cache SSD has at least 8TB reserved.
- Custom-duration S licensing costs $90 for one day.
Verdict
Baselight offers grading and finishing tools across Linux and macOS, with distinct S and M options for solo users and facilities. Check the recommended hardware and collaboration differences, as well as the licence structure, before choosing an edition.
Baselight plans and pricing
All plansCompared on video color grading software
- Free plan
- No
- HDR finishing
- Yes
- Camera RAW support
- Yes
- Color management
- managed
- Collaboration tools
- Yes
- Plugin support
- Yes
- Supported platforms
- macOS, Linux
- Max output resolution
- 4 K
