How to Export a Custom LUT From Your iPhone Color Edits

You spend an afternoon dialing in a photo grade you love. The colors are exactly what you wanted. Then you open Final Cut to edit a video shot in the same conditions — and you start from scratch.

There's a better way. Most modern color grading apps let you export your photo grade as a LUT — a portable color transformation file that you can load into video editing software. Once exported, the same look that defined your photo set can define your video footage too.

This is a short guide to what LUTs are, how to export them from iPhone, and where they actually work well (and don't).

TL;DR

  • A LUT (Look-Up Table) is a portable file that describes a color transformation. Apply it in a different app, get the same look.
  • Modern iPhone color apps like Colorby export .cube LUTs that work in Premiere, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, LumaFusion, and most video editors.
  • LUTs work best when the source footage is similar in lighting and exposure to the photo you originally graded.
  • LUTs are starting points, not finishers — you'll usually still want a final pass per project.

Key takeaways

  • LUTs are the standard way professional color grades travel between apps and projects.
  • Export at 100% strength, then apply at 50–80% in the target app for best results.
  • Test your LUT on a few different shots before committing — one LUT rarely fits every situation.
  • LUTs work for both stills and video, but the workflow is most useful for hybrid creators who shoot both.

What a LUT actually is

A LUT is a file (usually .cube format) that maps every input color to an output color. Think of it as a recipe: "if a pixel comes in as this exact RGB value, output it as that other RGB value." Apply this recipe to every pixel in an image or video frame, and you get a consistent color transformation.

LUTs come in two main flavors:

  • Technical LUTs — used to convert between color spaces (Log to Rec.709, for instance).
  • Creative LUTs — define a stylized "look" (warm cinematic, muted vintage, etc.).

What you export from a photo grading app is a creative LUT. It encodes the style of your grade so other apps can reproduce it.

Why export a LUT from a photo app

The case for it:

  • Consistency between stills and motion. If your Instagram grid has a specific look, exporting that look as a LUT lets your video content match.
  • Faster video editing. Your video editor can apply the LUT to all clips at once instead of regrading each.
  • Sharing your style. A LUT is a small file. You can hand it to collaborators or sell it as a product.
  • Backup. Even if you stop using the app you built the look in, the LUT works elsewhere.

The case against it:

  • LUTs are static — they don't adapt to lighting changes the way AI grading does. For varied footage, you'll still need adjustments.
  • A LUT exported from a tightly-graded photo may be too aggressive applied to neutral video footage.

How to export a LUT from iPhone

The general flow (specific menu names vary by app, but the steps are universal):

  1. Build your grade — apply a reference match, AI style, or manual edits until you love the result.
  2. Open export options — most apps have an "Export as LUT" or similar option in the share / export menu.
  3. Choose format — .cube is the most compatible. Some apps also offer .3dl for legacy Adobe workflows.
  4. Choose size — 33×33×33 is the standard size and works everywhere. 65×65×65 is higher quality but unnecessary for most uses.
  5. Save — save to Files, AirDrop to your Mac, or share directly to a cloud folder.

In Colorby, the export option lives under the share menu of any edited photo or preset. The resulting .cube file works in any LUT-compatible video editor.

Where to use the exported LUT

Once you have a .cube file, here's where it works:

  • Premiere Pro — Lumetri Color → Creative tab → Look dropdown → Browse to your .cube.
  • Final Cut Pro — Add the Custom LUT effect → load .cube.
  • DaVinci Resolve — Right-click → 3D LUT → Open LUT Folder → drop the file in, then select from the menu.
  • LumaFusion (iPad / iPhone) — LUT effect → Import LUT.
  • CapCut / VN / mobile video editors — Most support LUT import under filters or effects.

For photos, you can re-import the LUT into other photo editors (Lightroom, Photoshop) too — though if you have the original app, just using the preset is usually easier.

LUT application tips

  • Apply at 50–80% intensity. Full strength almost always looks too much, especially on video footage with different baseline characteristics.
  • Normalize exposure first. A LUT applied to under-exposed or over-exposed footage will produce strange results. Get exposure right before the LUT.
  • Skin check. As always, faces are the canary. If skin looks wrong, the LUT is too aggressive for this footage.
  • Test on a representative clip first. Don't apply a LUT to your entire timeline before testing it on 10 seconds of footage.

When LUTs don't work well

  • Footage shot in radically different lighting from the source photo
  • Footage with very different white balance baseline
  • Stylized footage that already has heavy in-camera processing
  • Highly compressed footage where the LUT amplifies banding and artifacts

In these cases, treat the LUT as a starting point. Apply it, then adjust exposure, white balance, and intensity to fit the specific footage.

A practical creator workflow

Here's a workflow that makes the photo → LUT → video pipeline pay off:

  1. Define your visual identity in photos first. Photos are faster to edit and iterate on than video. Build the look on stills.
  2. Save the look as a preset, then export as a LUT.
  3. Use the preset for your photo posts; use the LUT for your video content.
  4. Refresh the look quarterly. Audiences (and your taste) shift over time. Build a new LUT every few months as your style evolves.

This pipeline scales because the heavy creative work (defining the look) happens once, and the application (preset + LUT) is fast across both mediums.

FAQ

What's the difference between a preset and a LUT? A preset is internal to one app and includes all of that app's adjustments (curves, HSL, masks, etc.). A LUT is a portable color transformation that works across many apps but only encodes the color part of the grade.

Can I export Colorby grades as LUTs? Yes. Colorby supports .cube LUT export from any edited photo or saved preset.

Will an iPhone-exported LUT work on professional video software? Yes. .cube is a universal format used in Premiere, Final Cut, Resolve, and most other professional tools.

What size LUT should I export? 33×33×33 (33 cube) for standard use. 65×65×65 if you want maximum precision and your target app supports it.

Does the LUT carry my exposure / contrast adjustments too, or just color? It encodes the full tonal transformation, including contrast curves and saturation — but not localized adjustments like masks or selective edits.

Export your first LUT

If you're building a hybrid photo + video workflow, Colorby on iPhone supports .cube LUT export from any preset — so the look you define for your photo grid can carry directly into your video edits.