Free LUTs for Premiere Pro: how to find, check and use them

What does a free LUT actually do to your footage?

A LUT (lookup table) replaces every input colour with a fixed output colour, and that is all it does. It doesn't measure your shot. A clip that is a stop under or too blue goes into the LUT wrong and comes out wrong in a new style.

Free LUTs come in two kinds. Mixing them up causes most bad results:

• Conversion LUTs turn a flat log recording into standard-looking video. Each one is built for one camera profile, and it is a technical step, not a style.
• Creative LUTs push colour and contrast toward a style. They are often labelled "looks", "cinematic" or film-style. They expect footage that already looks normal.

The common file format is .cube, a plain text file. Because it is text, the same file sits on a Windows PC or a Mac unchanged. The file itself needs no installer.

Work in this order:

1. Fix exposure and white balance.
2. Convert, if you shot log.
3. Add the look.

If the correction step is where you get stuck, our guide to auto colour correction in Premiere Pro covers it before any LUT goes on.

Where can you get free LUTs for Premiere Pro?

Get a free LUT from the person or company that made it, on their own page. Re-uploads on file-sharing sites and in video descriptions often drop the licence text. Sometimes they also drop the readme that says which footage the LUT was built for.

We don't list free LUT sites on this page. We haven't checked any pack's files or licence terms for it, and free terms change, so a list would be a guess. Instead, here is where to look, in this order:

1. Your camera maker's support page, if you shoot a log profile. Where the maker publishes a conversion LUT, that file was built for your exact profile, which no third-party pack can promise.
2. Colourists and filmmakers who give away a small pack to show their style. These are creative looks. Read what footage they graded with it, and how it was exposed.
3. Free sections of template and asset sites. Read the licence on each item, not the site's front page. Free items and paid items can sit under different terms.
4. Packs bundled with a plugin, course or subscription. Check whether you can keep using the LUT if you stop paying.

If you want a grading tool rather than more files, our roundup of Premiere Pro colour grading plugins compares the options by job. If what you downloaded turns out to be effect settings rather than a LUT, see how to import Premiere Pro presets.

How do I check a free LUT before I use it?

Run six checks before a free LUT goes near a client timeline. It takes a few minutes per pack and saves a re-grade later.

Then test it properly:

1. Duplicate one clip or the sequence.
2. Put the LUT on the copy only.
3. Compare it with the original on three shots: a well-lit one, a dark one and one with faces.

If the LUT only works on one of the three, it is a look for that kind of shot, not for your whole edit.

Keep the LUTs that pass in one folder with a plain naming scheme, for example conversion_cameraprofile.cube and look_warm-01.cube. Back up that folder with your project template. If you can't reopen a grade with the same LUT file, you'll end up redoing the grade.

How do I install and apply a free LUT in Premiere Pro?

Unzip the pack and keep the .cube files in one folder you back up. Then load the LUT from the tool that will apply it.

This page gives only the steps we could verify on 3 November 2026. For Premiere's built-in colour panel, check Adobe's own Premiere Pro help for the current menu path. We don't reprint it here because we haven't checked it for this page.

Before you load anything

1. Unzip the download. Don't rename the .cube extension.
2. Read the readme for the input the LUT expects: a camera log profile or standard video.
3. Move the files into your LUT folder.
4. Correct exposure and white balance on the clip first, so the LUT starts from neutral footage.
5. Duplicate the clip or sequence, so you have an untouched copy to compare against.

Loading a .cube LUT with mouzegrade (Windows and Mac)

1. Install mouzeclick and paste your key. There's no driver. On a Mac, follow the four steps for installing mouzeclick on a Mac, including the Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions.
2. In the mouzeclick app, open the Tool wheel page and press Install Premiere bridge.
3. Restart Premiere Pro. Keep mouzeclick running while you work.
4. Open mouzegrade from Window › Extensions.
5. Select the clip, load your .cube LUT in mouzegrade and keep the scopes in view.
6. Compare the result with the copy you kept.

mouzegrade writes the grade as an ordinary colour effect, so it sits in the clip's effects like any other colour correction. For general panel installs, including what to do when a panel is missing, see how to install Premiere Pro extensions.

Why does my free LUT look wrong in Premiere Pro?

Usually the LUT expects different footage from what you gave it. Match the symptom to the cause before you try another pack.

When a look is close but too heavy, use a lighter look or a correction underneath it. Don't stack a second LUT to cancel out the first.

If the problem only appears in the exported file, our guide to Premiere Pro export settings for YouTube covers the settings to check.

How do I make clips match after adding a LUT?

Grade one hero clip, then match every other clip to it. Putting the same LUT on everything and hoping doesn't work. A LUT applies the same transform to every clip, but it doesn't make different clips look alike, because they started out different.

mouzegrade matches clips to a reference. Use your graded hero clip as the reference, match the next clip to it, then confirm the match on the scopes:

• Waveform: are the brightest and darkest parts sitting at the same levels as the reference?
• RGB parade: is one channel riding higher, which shows as a colour cast?
• Vectorscope with a skin line: do faces sit on the line in both clips?
• Histogram: is the spread of tones similar, or is one clip bunched up in the shadows?

Work in passes: first match brightness, then colour, then judge the look. Fixing colour before brightness means doing it twice.

If you don't have a pack you trust yet, mouzegrade also has six built-in looks to start from. The full list of what it does is on mouzegrade in the feature library (47 items).

Are free cinematic and Kodak-style LUTs any good?

A free cinematic or Kodak-style LUT is only as good as the footage under it and as honest as its maker's notes. "Cinematic" is a description, not a standard.

A LUT named after a film stock is its maker's idea of that look. Nothing on this page tests any free pack against a real stock, and we name none.

To judge one, run the three-shot test from the checklist above and look at:

• Skin. Faces should stay near the vectorscope's skin line. If every face turns the same orange, the look will fight you on every interview.
• Highlights. A good look rolls bright areas off gently. A bad one turns skies and windows into flat white patches.
• Shadows. Some looks lift blacks for a faded feel. That is fine on purpose, but check that detail survives in dark shots.
• Range. A look that only works on one perfectly exposed sample shot won't hold up across a real edit.

If two free packs both pass, keep the one whose readme states its input. A look you can't place in your order of steps will cost you time on every project.

Can I put colour steps on mouse buttons in Premiere Pro?

Yes. With mouzeclick, the Tool wheel, Search effects and per-app mouse buttons put your colour steps one flick or one press away. All of these run on Windows and Mac.

• Tool wheel (F10 or a held right button). It works only in Premiere Pro and After Effects. You scroll between layouts, for example one for editing, one for colour and one for motion. The Premiere Pro wheel holds 112 tools in 12 segments, your installed effects among them, and you build it yourself.
• Search effects. It finds every installed effect and transition, plug-ins included. Enter applies the effect. Shift+Enter applies it and pins it to the Tool wheel. See Search effects in the feature library.
• Mouse buttons per app. Mouse 4 can do one thing in Premiere and something else in every other app. Each button has eleven slots: tap, hold and move in four directions, a chord with another button, or hold and scroll.
• Options wheel (F8). It holds 48 favourites per app on three rings, for keys, macros and your own shortcuts.

The full setup for editing shortcuts is in Premiere Pro mouse shortcuts on any mouse. Every Premiere tool is listed on the Premiere Pro and After Effects tools page.

Where mouzeclick fits (we make it)

We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. mouzeclick doesn't give you free LUTs. It gives you:

• a place in Premiere Pro to load the .cube files you have checked
• four scopes to judge them
• matching to a reference, so a look holds across clips

mouzegrade is one of the 22 extensions for Premiere Pro and After Effects. It comes in the single mouzeclick plan, which costs $25 a month, $249 a year, or $499 once for one of the first 100 lifetime keys. Prices and the full list are on the pricing section. The trial is 3 days with no card, and every Premiere Pro and After Effects tool works fully.

What runs where:

• Windows and Mac: mouzegrade, Search effects, both Tool wheels and the mouse app.
• Windows only: the two workspace panels, Studio captions (auto, styled and Hinglish), Retakes, cloud sync and in-app updates.

The Premiere Pro workspace (Windows only) has a Color desk, but it holds palettes and gradients, which are design colours, not LUTs. mouzeclick needs an internet connection while it runs. It has no DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut panel.

Another tool is the better pick if you grade rarely and already have a grading tool you like. Then you don't need another panel: the checklist and order of steps on this page work with whatever tool applies your LUT.

Questions people ask

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