Best Color Grading Studios in Sydney (2026)

Introduction

Sydney’s colour work splits between commercial colourists grading spots for the city’s agencies and finishing houses that grade drama, documentary and features for the streamers and Australian broadcasters. The 6 studios below cover both, chosen for named colourists, recent credits and a working Sydney studio in 2026.

The long-form side has been busy. The Post Lounge, whose Sydney studio is in Redfern, began working with Company 3 on inbound international projects in July 2025 and in January 2026 advertised for a head of colour to lead DI and grading for features and premium episodic work. On the commercial side, HPA Award-winning colourist Keiran Lee opened his own grading suite, Eighteen Percent, in Woolloomooloo in September 2025. Several of Sydney’s senior commercial colourists run their own suites and work with agencies directly.

Every studio here has an active Sydney base in 2026. Sydney has fewer dedicated colour houses than London or New York, so this list is shorter than others in the series, and it runs in no fixed order of merit. The right choice depends on the format, the look you want and the colourist you want in the chair.

The best color grading studios in Sydney

1. Eighteen Percent

Independent, colourist-owned · Woolloomooloo · eighteenpercent.com.au

Eighteen Percent is the grading studio of colourist Keiran Lee, who opened it in Woolloomooloo in September 2025. Lee has a Hollywood Professional Association award, and his credits include Mortal Kombat, The LEGO Movie 2 and Peter Rabbit 2, for studios including Netflix, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures. He has worked with directors Simon McQuoid, Chris McKay and Will Gluck.

The suite grades film, television, documentary and commercials in DaVinci Resolve, with Grade-1 EIZO Prominence monitoring and Dolby Vision workflows. Remote review runs through Colorfront for clients outside Sydney, and there is an in-person review space for directors, DPs and agencies. Lee also takes freelance bookings at other post houses around Australia.

2. The Post Lounge

Independent · Redfern · thepostlounge.com

The Post Lounge is an independently owned, full-service post company with studios in Redfern, Collingwood, Brisbane and at Village Roadshow Studios on the Gold Coast. Its picture department covers dailies, LUT creation, colour, DI and online, and its selected credits include Better Man, Elvis and Ron Howard’s Eden. In July 2025 it announced a partnership with Company 3 on inbound projects in Australia.

Brett Manson joined full time as senior colourist in January 2025, when Margaux Hemard was also promoted to junior colourist in New South Wales. The company advertised a head of colour role for its Redfern studio in January 2026, so ask who will lead your grade. It shares a group with production company Orange Entertainment Co.

3. Spectrum Films

Family-owned · Moore Park · spectrumfilms.com.au

Spectrum Films is a family-owned post facility dating from 1964, based at Disney Studios Australia in Moore Park (formerly Fox Studios Australia) with a second site in Brisbane’s West End. Its finishing department runs both DaVinci Resolve and Baselight, connected to more than a petabyte of central storage.

It has Dolby Vision HDR and SDR grading suites with Sony X300 and X310 monitors, plus theatrical grading theatres with a Dolby PRM monitor. In-house colourists work alongside freelance colourists that productions bring in. Its site carries endorsements from Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid, Boy Swallows Universe cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe ACS and Elvis editor Matt Villa.

4. Colourspace Post

Independent · Crows Nest · colourspace.au

Colourspace Post is a colour grading and finishing studio in Crows Nest, on the lower North Shore, set up for long-form television. It grades and masters series, documentaries and factual programmes, and also handles online editing, colour management, frame rate conversion and image enhancement. The studio works in DaVinci Resolve and Avid Media Composer and lists Dolby Vision certification.

Recent titles on its site include Rick Stein’s Australia, The Assembly, Alone series 3, LEGO Masters, Farmer Wants a Wife, RPA and Going Places with Ernie Dingo. Clients include SBS, ITV Studios Australia, Endemol Shine, CJZ and WTFN, which makes it a strong fit for factual and unscripted producers.

5. Blue Post

Private · Pyrmont · bluepost.com.au

Blue Post describes itself as a long-form post-production facility, with studios on Harris Street in Pyrmont and in Port Melbourne. Peter Millington is managing director across both cities and Rachel Knowles runs the Sydney studio. Colour grading sits alongside offline, online and deliverables, and the colour team works in Dolby Vision.

Its long credit list in Australian drama includes NCIS: Sydney, Apple Cider Vinegar, Heartbreak High, Colin From Accounts, Deadloch, The Survivors and Return to Paradise. Ask which city’s team will grade your project, since the list covers work from both studios.

6. BE

Independent, colourist-owned · Sydney · beneagleton.com

BE is the Baselight grading facility of colourist Ben Eagleton, who started at Rushes in London, set up the grading company BEAN in 2007 and later worked at The Mill and Smoke and Mirrors in New York before joining Fuel VFX as head of colour in 2011. He opened BE in Sydney in 2013 and works mainly on commercials, with short films, music videos and features alongside.

Eagleton has more than 130 colourist credits on LBB. His 2026 work includes Bankwest’s “Interesting Rate” for Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, Uber Hong Kong for Special Australia, Domain for Howatson+Company, Heidi for Cocogun and Maxibon for SickDogWolfMan.

What to look for in a Sydney colour grading studio

Start with the format. Long-form houses such as Blue Post, Spectrum Films, The Post Lounge and Colourspace Post are set up for drama, documentary and features, with conform, mastering and the deliverables that streamers and broadcasters ask for. Check for Dolby Vision if the job needs an HDR master. Commercial colourists such as Ben Eagleton and Keiran Lee work faster across short turnarounds, many versions and agency sign-off.

Book the colourist, then the room. A grade depends on one person’s eye and on how they work with the director and DP, and several Sydney studios bring in freelance colourists as well as their own staff. Look at reels close to your footage and ask who will be in the chair for the whole session, including cut-downs and social versions.

Agree the pipeline before the shoot. Settle the camera, colour space, show LUT and HDR or SDR targets with the colourist and the DIT, so dailies, the offline and the final grade start from the same look. Ask whether the studio grades in Baselight or DaVinci Resolve, and how it passes colour decisions to VFX vendors.

Finally, plan the review. Sydney grades often have a director or client in Melbourne, Los Angeles or Singapore watching remotely, while the agency sits in the suite. Clear rules on where reference stills, LUTs, graded exports and notes live will shorten each round, especially when several people need to approve the same version.

How Fabric helps colour grading teams

Fabric gives a colour studio one workspace for reference material, graded exports and client feedback, with AI search across all of it. Each job can have its own shared space for the treatment, the DP’s reference frames, the show LUT and every version sent for review. For producers and clients new to the process, there are short primers on what colour grading is and what a LUT is.

Exports and project files sit in Fabric’s cloud drive, which streams files on demand so they take no local disk space, and heavy files open without a full download. Search includes colour search, so a team can find past grades and stills by shade. Similar search compares images by composition, colour and subject, which helps when a director asks for a look close to an earlier job.

For review, a graded cut or a folder of stills can be published as a web page with password protection, and link analytics shows when each named recipient opened it and for how long. Agency and client teams can leave threaded comments through a shared link without creating an account. Reviewers can leave timestamped comments on video and draw on any frame or still. Annotations also work on PDFs and documents such as look books and grade notes.

The grade itself stays in the calibrated suite and the grading software. Fabric keeps the material around each session organised and easy to share, with AES-256 encryption for stored files.

Password protection and link analytics are included on Pro and Team plans. See plans for teams.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best colour grading studio in Sydney?

It depends on the work. For commercials, colourist-owned suites such as Ben Eagleton’s BE and Keiran Lee’s Eighteen Percent give you a senior colourist directly. For drama and features, Blue Post, Spectrum Films and The Post Lounge have the facilities and credit lists, and Colourspace Post specialises in factual and unscripted television.

Which Sydney studios grade TV drama and feature films?

Blue Post’s credits include NCIS: Sydney, Apple Cider Vinegar and Heartbreak High. The Post Lounge lists Better Man, Elvis and Eden, and Spectrum Films has theatrical grading theatres at Disney Studios Australia in Moore Park. Keiran Lee at Eighteen Percent also grades features.

Can I attend a Sydney grade remotely?

Yes. Eighteen Percent runs remote review sessions through Colorfront for clients outside Sydney, and studios with several sites, such as The Post Lounge and Blue Post, regularly share work between cities. Ask the studio which streaming system it uses and how remote viewers should set up their monitors.

Should colour be booked separately from editing and VFX?

Often, yes. Many Sydney commercial jobs pair an editorial house with a separate colourist, while studios such as Heckler handle colour, VFX and sound together. For a single facility covering edit, colour, VFX and sound, see our list of the best post-production companies in Sydney.

What software do Sydney colourists use?

Baselight and DaVinci Resolve are the two main systems. Spectrum Films runs both, Ben Eagleton grades on Baselight, and Eighteen Percent and Colourspace Post work in Resolve. Confirm the system early if your VFX vendor needs colour decisions in a particular format.

Related lists

Colour grading studios in other cities: New York · London · Los Angeles · Chicago · Toronto

More in Sydney: Creative agencies · Post-production · VFX · Video production · Sound design

Run your colour studio on Fabric: Fabric for video editors · What is colour space? · Best video review software for creative teams