How to apply a LUT to multiple clips: 4 ways compared

What is a LUT, and why apply it in bulk?

A LUT (look-up table) is a small file, usually ending in .cube, that remaps colours: this input colour becomes that output colour. It does one of two jobs:

• Conversion. Flat LOG footage (D-Log, S-Log, C-Log) is turned into normal contrast and colour.
• Look. A style is laid on top: warmer, cooler, faded, contrasty.

You apply it in bulk because a shoot is not one file. It is a card full of clips and photos from the same camera on the same day, and they should look like they belong together.

That consistency is not decoration. If you are building a faceless brand, the look of the footage is doing part of the job a face would do.

What are the four ways to apply a LUT to multiple clips?

1. Premiere Pro: an adjustment layer

Create an adjustment layer, put it on the track above your clips and stretch it across them. Add Lumetri Color to the layer and load the LUT there. Everything underneath takes the look.

It is quick and it is one setting. To turn the look down on one clip, you cut the layer and adjust that piece.

2. DaVinci Resolve: a selection or a group

On the colour page, select the clips, right-click and choose the LUT. Or put the clips in a group and grade the group, so a change reaches all of them.

This is the most capable option by a distance. It is also a full grading suite, which is a lot of tool if all you want is one look on forty files.

3. ffmpeg: a loop

for f in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf lut3d=look.cube "graded_$f"; done

It is free and it runs unattended. There is no preview, so you find out how it looks after the export, and a malformed .cube file stops it.

4. A batch app

Drop in the folder, pick the look, export. This is the category BatchTone is in, and it is covered below.

What about photos?

This is where the usual workflow splits in two.

LUTs come from video. In Photoshop you can load a .cube in a Color Lookup adjustment layer, record that as an action and run it over a folder with Batch. Lightroom works with presets and profiles, not with .cube files directly.

So a mixed shoot means two tools, two passes and two looks that almost match. If the clips become reels and the photos become carousels on the same account, "almost" is visible.

Why does one strength never fit the whole shoot?

Because the light changed and the LUT did not.

A look that is right on a well-exposed clip is too heavy on the one shot into the window and too strong on the skin tones in the close-up. Apply it at full strength to everything and two or three files come out wrong.

That is the actual problem with batch grading. Applying a LUT to forty files is easy. Applying it to thirty-eight at full strength and two at sixty percent, without leaving the batch, is the part most methods make awkward.

Where does BatchTone fit?

BatchTone is a macOS app I build. I wrote up shipping it in three days, and it exists for exactly the case above.

The flow:

1. Drop in the shoot. Photos and clips together, straight from the card.
2. Pick a look. Import a .cube pack once. Every look is previewed on your own first frame, so you choose by eye and not by filename.
3. Dial it in, file by file. Each file has its own strength slider. Hold a key to see the original.
4. Export as JPEG or MP4. The originals are never touched.

What that gets you:

• One look, with exceptions. The two frames that need less get less, inside the same batch.
• Photos and video together. The same .cube is applied to both with the same maths, so they match.
• Nothing is uploaded. Everything runs on your machine. No account, no cloud.
• Metadata survives. Capture date, camera and GPS are carried across, and orientation is handled so nothing comes out rotated.
• It remembers. Your adjustments are still there after you close the app, and a failed export tells you which files finished.
• DJI files just work. The malformed .cube files DJI ships, which ffmpeg rejects, are repaired on import.

It is sold as one payment with lifetime updates, which is the pricing model that makes sense for a tool you open after every shoot and not every day.

What is still on paper for BatchTone?

I build in public, and that has a cost: the list is visible before it ships.

Two items are announced on the site, and both are included in the same purchase: exposure and colour adjustments beyond LUTs, and a Windows build.

The rest are ideas on paper. No dates, no promises:

• A watch folder. Insert the card and the batch is already loaded.
• Compare two looks side by side on the same frame before committing.
• Recipes per camera. A saved LUT plus a default strength for each camera you own.
• Suggested strength. A starting value per file, based on how it was exposed, that you then correct.
• More export formats for people who deliver to an editor and not to a feed.

If one of these would change how you work, tell me. That is how the order gets decided.

When is BatchTone the wrong tool?

• You are on Windows or an Intel Mac. It runs on macOS 12 or later with Apple Silicon today.
• You need masks, curves or shot-by-shot correction. That is grading, and Resolve is the tool.
• You have one clip. Your editor already does this.
• You deliver in something other than JPEG or MP4. Those are the export formats.
• You are already in Premiere and one strength is fine. Use the adjustment layer and move on.

And if you are batching a month of content from stock footage that is already graded, you do not need a LUT at all.

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BatchTone, if the whole shoot needs one look

A note on fit first. If you grade one clip at a time, or you already live in Resolve, the methods above are the full answer and you do not need another app. BatchTone is not a grading suite, and it does not run on Windows yet.

BatchTone applies a LUT to a whole shoot at once on macOS: photos and clips in the same batch, a strength slider on every file, everything processed on your own machine. The trial is fully unlocked with no watermark, so you can test it with your own camera files and your own LUTs before deciding anything.

Try BatchTone