Introduction

Think of a Macbeth ColorChecker as a known set of paint swatches. MacBlend compares all 24 swatches in your image with a target, then builds one broad correction that brings them closer. It can create the correction as compositor or shader nodes and export it in both directions as .cube LUTs.

It brings the chart-matching workflows documented by Marco Meyer in mmColorTarget and Jed Smith in CalibrateMacbeth into Blender.

Requirements

  • Blender 4.2 or newer

  • A source image containing a visible 6-by-4 Macbeth chart

  • Knowledge of how each image was recorded or exported

Installation

Install MacBlend from the Blender Extensions platform.

When the Extensions platform is unavailable, download an extension ZIP from GitHub releases.

See Blender’s Installing Extensions documentation for installation instructions.

MacBlend adds a MacBlend tab to the Image Editor sidebar and to the sidebar of supported Compositor and Shader Editor node editors.

Color management

Color management tells Blender how to interpret the RGB values in an image. Set the image’s Color Space to match how it was recorded or exported so MacBlend receives the right colors; if Blender starts with the wrong colors, the correction will also be wrong.

The Method and limitations page explains the setup and the color science behind it.

Workflow

  1. Load and correctly tag the source image.

  2. Align the chart overlay and sample its 24 patches.

  3. Optionally sample a target image.

  4. Open a supported node editor and configure the calibration.

  5. Create Forward or Inverse nodes, or export both LUT directions.

See Method and limitations for the calculation, normalization behavior, transform directions, and assumptions.