Pick by the job, not by the feature list
Almost every tool below can apply a LUT. That is not the useful question. The useful question is what the tool is organised around — a timeline, a library, a plugin host, or a folder — because that is what decides whether your job takes ten minutes or an afternoon.
| Tool | Organised around | Best at | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| DaVinci Resolve | A timeline | Grading an edit, properly | Free, Studio paid |
| Premiere Pro | A timeline | Editing, with Lumetri attached | Subscription |
| Final Cut Pro | A library | Editing on macOS, per-clip Mix | One payment |
| Lightroom | A photo library | Raw develop, sync across a shoot | Subscription |
| Capture One | A photo session | Raw develop, tethering, direct .cube | Licence or subscription |
| Dehancer / FilmConvert | A host plugin | Film emulation, grain, halation | Paid, per host |
| BatchTone | A folder | One look across many files, per-file strength | One payment |
The editors
DaVinci Resolve is the serious answer for grading a cut, and the free version is not crippled — LUT support is identical to Studio's. Its weakness for our purposes is everything it asks for before you start: a project, a timeline, a render queue. Adding LUTs in Resolve covers the mechanics, including the Update Lists step that stops half the installs.
Premiere Pro puts colour inside the edit through Lumetri, with two LUT slots that people routinely confuse — the Premiere LUT workflow covers which is which and the export setting that quietly changes colour.
Final Cut Pro has the nicest per-clip control of the three: the Custom LUT effect's Mix slider is a real strength dial. Across a whole library it is still paste-attributes work.
The raw developers
Lightroom syncs settings across a selection very well and does not read
.cube files at all — they have to be converted to camera profiles in Photoshop
first, which is three applications per
LUT.
Capture One does read .cube directly, which makes it the friendlier of the
two for LUT work, and it is a raw developer first: stills only, no video.
The film emulators
Dehancer and FilmConvert are not really colour graders; they are emulation engines with grain, halation and print characteristics. They live inside a host — Premiere, Resolve, Photoshop, Lightroom — and are priced per host, which adds up quickly if you work in more than one.
Worth knowing: this category is where the money in colour tools is, which is why searching for "colour grading software" surfaces it heavily. It is also not what someone converting a card of LOG footage needs.
The batch tools
The category nobody lists, because it does not fit in the others. The job is:
one look, many files, no edit. That means no timeline, no library, no host —
just a folder, a .cube, and control over how much each file takes.
BatchTone does that on macOS: photos and video in the same batch, a strength dial per file, metadata preserved, exports named before the run and originals never touched. It does not grade an edit and it does not develop raw files, which is the deal — a narrow tool for the job the wide ones make ceremonial. Seven-day trial, everything unlocked.
Choosing, in one table
| If you are… | Use |
|---|---|
| Grading a cut | Resolve |
| Editing and grading in one place | Premiere or Final Cut |
| Developing raw stills | Lightroom or Capture One |
| After a film look | Dehancer or FilmConvert |
| Converting a card of LOG clips | A batch tool |
| Applying a house look to 400 JPEGs | A batch tool |
Common questions
What is the best free colour grading software?
DaVinci Resolve, by a distance, if the job is grading an edit. For applying one look across a folder, free means ffmpeg on the command line — capable, no preview, and no per-file strength without writing a filtergraph.
Do I need colour grading software if I shoot in a normal profile?
Probably not. The tools above earn their place when footage is flat by design, when a shoot has to match across cameras, or when a look has to be consistent across hundreds of files.
Is colour correction the same as colour grading?
No. Correction makes the image accurate — white balance, exposure, contrast. Grading makes it intentional. A conversion LUT is correction; a creative LUT is grading, and they belong in that order.
Can one tool do stills and video?
Few do it well. Resolve handles stills awkwardly, Lightroom handles video awkwardly, and both treat the other medium as a visitor. Doing both in one batch is the specific thing BatchTone is built for.