Frequently asked questions

Answers to what people actually ask about film emulation LUTs: file formats, licensing, why a look came out wrong, and what a LUT cannot do.

Are these LUTs really free?

Yes. All 296 download as .cube files with no account, no email and no watermark, and the browser tool exports at full resolution for free too. They derive from the open-source G'MIC film emulation collection.

Can I use them commercially?

Yes — for client work, paid video, prints and stock. What you should not do is repackage the LUT files themselves and sell them as your own product. If a client asks about licensing, the honest answer is that the underlying emulation data is open source.

Do you upload my photo anywhere?

No. The tool runs entirely in your browser using WebGL2 — your photo is read into the page, processed on your GPU and never sent anywhere. There is no upload endpoint to send it to. You can disconnect from the network after the page loads and it still works.

What is the difference between a LUT and a preset?

A LUT is a fixed colour-to-colour mapping that behaves identically in any application that reads it. A preset is a saved list of slider positions specific to one program — a Lightroom preset means nothing to Premiere. LUTs are portable; presets carry more editable structure.

Why does the look come out wrong in DaVinci Resolve?

Almost always a colour space mismatch. These LUTs expect ordinary Rec.709 video. If your timeline is set to a log or wide-gamut working space, the LUT receives values it was never designed for. Convert to Rec.709 first, then apply the look on a later node.

Why does the film look fake at 100%?

Because you are stacking a film response on top of an image a camera already processed — contrast, white balance and sharpening have been applied once. Most of these read better between 50% and 80%. Every application has a strength control; the software guides say where each one hides it.

Why is there no grain?

A LUT maps colour to colour, one pixel at a time. Grain is spatial texture that varies from pixel to pixel regardless of colour, so no LUT can produce it — and neither can halation, which comes from light scattering into neighbouring pixels. That is why the tool has separate grain and halation sliders. See what a LUT is.

Which file format are these, and will they work in my software?

They are .cube 3D LUTs, the de facto standard. They load in Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Capture One, Affinity Photo, GIMP and OBS. Most are 33×33×33, which is the usual sampling density.

Do these work on video as well as photos?

Yes, and for video the cinema print stocks are usually the better choice — they supply the contrast curve audiences read as cinematic. Correct your footage to a neutral base first and apply the look as the final step.

Why do 296 LUTs only make 87 pages?

Because they are not 296 different films. They are 87 film stocks, each shipped with exposure variants (+1, +2, −1 stop), temperature variants (cold, warm) and alternate renderings. Every variant is downloadable; they are grouped on the page for the stock they belong to.

Are these officially made by Kodak or Fujifilm?

No. Filmgrid is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any film manufacturer. Film stock names are trademarks of their owners and are used here descriptively, to identify which film each look emulates. The emulations are derived from open-source community work.

Why does the tool say WebGL2 is unavailable?

The renderer needs WebGL2, which requires Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari 15 or newer, with hardware acceleration enabled. On older machines it is sometimes disabled in browser settings. The film library is plain HTML and works regardless.

Can I use these on RAW files?

Apply them in a RAW editor rather than feeding a RAW file to the browser tool, which works on JPEG and PNG. In Lightroom or Capture One the LUT sits at the end of your RAW processing, which is exactly where it belongs.

How do I pick one out of 296?

Do not scroll. Drop a photo into the tool and all 296 render on your own image at once — press F for the full-screen grid. Judging a look on someone else's sample photo is guesswork. If you want to narrow it first, start from a style or a subject.