video · guide
LUTs in Adobe After Effects
The Apply Color LUT effect, or Lumetri Color if you want an intensity slider.
Step by step
- Select the layer and apply Effect → Utility → Apply Color LUT.
- Choose the
.cubefile in the file dialog that opens. - For a strength control, use Effect → Color Correction → Lumetri Color and load the LUT under Creative → Look instead.
Apply Color LUT has no intensity parameter. To fade it, duplicate the layer, apply the LUT to the top copy and lower its opacity — or use Lumetri.
Which LUT to load
Every LUT here is a standard .cube 3D LUT, so all 296 work in Adobe After Effects. The real problem is choosing one, and downloading twenty files to audition them is the slow way round.
Preview all 296 on your own photo →
Drop a photo into the tool and every look renders on it at once. Find the two or three worth keeping, then download only those.
Popular starting points
Kodak 2383 Print
The standard cinema print stock — what a film actually looked like projected in a cinema.
3 renderings
Fuji 3510 Print
Fuji's cinema print stock — cooler and greener than Kodak's equivalent.
3 renderings
Kodak 2393 Print
A punchier Kodak print emulsion — 2383 with the contrast and saturation raised.
3 renderings
Kodak Portra 400
The default modern portrait film: warm, forgiving skin tones and a very long highlight roll-off.
16 renderings
Fuji X-Trans III Classic Chrome
Fujifilm's documentary simulation — muted colour and hard shadows, evoking Kodachrome.
1 rendering
Kodak Tri-X 400
The definitive photojournalism film: gritty grain, deep blacks, enormous latitude.
6 renderingsGetting the strength right
Most film looks read better between 50% and 80% than at full strength. Real film never had to sit on top of an image that was already white-balanced and contrast-corrected, which is what you are asking it to do here.
Apply the LUT after exposure and white balance, never before — a look applied to an image that is two stops dark bakes the mistake in rather than fixing it. There is more on why in what a LUT actually is.
Other applications
DaVinci Resolve · Adobe Premiere Pro · Adobe Lightroom Classic · Adobe Photoshop · Final Cut Pro · Capture One · Affinity Photo · OBS Studio · GIMP