Tint / recolor
Set an absolute hue or rotate existing hue relationships. Neutral grayscale pixels receive chroma instead of staying gray.
Put color back under your control.
Tint a grayscale image, replace a selected color, work inside a real mask, constrain a palette, fill line art from color hints, or borrow the color distribution of a reference. Varve keeps the source image intact and makes the scope of every operation visible.
Palette colorize
Choose document swatches and decide whether you want shaded tonal influence or literal palette colors.
Reference transfer
Use a separate image's global color statistics while retaining the target's structure and source coverage.
Review before commit
A preview is a proposal, not a replacement.
Preview runs at the quality mode's model resolution and includes a split-view comparator against the original. Apply creates a new embedded result layer, rebuilds the approved colors over the full-resolution source, and leaves the original image available for comparison, undo, export, and another pass. A changed source, mask, reference, palette, or control signature cannot be overwritten by late asynchronous work.
Scope you can see
Masks are inputs, not instructions.
Whole-image scope is explicit. Mask scope requires an actual image mask, keeps its dimensions, and resamples coverage at source pixel centres. Blend and feathering are applied once, so zero coverage remains the source.
LightnessCIELAB L* preservation, not an unlabeled HSL slider.
ProtectionConservative heuristics are labelled; a user mask remains authoritative.
TransparencyAlpha and transparent source pixels stay intact.
Photo AI: model-gated
Photo colorization, without pretending it recovered history.
Varve has a local DDColor adapter for plausible photo colorization. It is enabled only when a verified model is installed and compatible with the current runtime. The model predicts chroma at a bounded working size; Varve reconstructs the result with the original source lightness, detail, and alpha. If the artifact is missing, deterministic tint and recolor still work and no source image is uploaded as a fallback.
Varve records the official acquisition route, but the configured release assets are not currently published. DDColor ONNX bytes still require independent integrity and visual verification before this lane is advertised as ready. Read the readiness notes.