Final Cut already knows about your log footage
Import S-Log3 or D-Log clips and Final Cut usually recognises the format and applies a camera LUT for you, in the Info inspector under Settings. The clip looks corrected before you have done anything.
That is convenient and occasionally confusing, because it means a conversion may already be in play when you add your own. Stacking your Rec.709 conversion on top of Final Cut's produces the crushed, over-contrasted result that gets blamed on the LUT. If you intend to convert manually, set the camera LUT to None first.
Custom LUTs
For anything Final Cut does not recognise, or for a creative look:
- Select the clip.
- Effects browser → Custom LUT → drag it on.
- In the inspector, LUT → Choose Custom LUT and pick the
.cube. - Mix underneath is the strength control.
Mix is the useful part. Unlike Premiere's Input LUT slot, it gives you a real per-clip amount without any workaround — which is exactly the control a shoot needs, one clip at a time.
Applying it to everything
Three routes, in increasing order of regret:
| Route | How | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Paste attributes | Grade one, copy, select the rest, Paste Attributes → Video | Silently overwrites other effects if you are not careful |
| An adjustment layer | A title-based adjustment over the timeline | Applies to the timeline, not to files for delivery |
| One by one | Drag, choose, set Mix | Fine at ten, painful at a hundred |
None of these produces *files*. They produce a timeline that looks right, and delivering converted clips to someone who does not use Final Cut still means a render — one share, one export, one set of settings, and a wait proportional to the whole library rather than to the clips anyone will watch.
The case this does not cover
A card of clips nobody has edited yet. A client who wants the raw material graded, not a cut. A shoot that produced two hundred JPEGs and thirty clips which all need the same look before anyone chooses between them.
Final Cut is an editor, and that is an editing-shaped answer to a file-processing-shaped problem. The same is true of Premiere and Resolve — this is not a Final Cut weakness, it is a category boundary.
What a batch tool does instead
BatchTone takes the folder, applies one .cube to photos
and clips together, and gives every file its own strength — the equivalent of
Final Cut's Mix slider, but on a hundred files without opening a timeline.
Audio is copied untouched, exports are named before the run, and originals are
never modified. There is a seven-day trial with everything
unlocked.
Final Cut then gets the material already converted, which is also faster to cut with.
Common questions
Where does Final Cut store custom LUTs?
It references the file you choose rather than importing a copy, so keep your pack somewhere permanent. A LUT that lived in Downloads and then did not is a common cause of an effect that stops working weeks later.
Can I apply a LUT to a whole library at once?
Not as files. You can paste attributes across a selection in a timeline, but converting the library on disk is not something Final Cut sets out to do.
Why does my footage look different after adding a LUT that "should" be right?
Check whether the camera LUT is already applied in the Info inspector. Two conversions is the usual answer, and the order LUTs belong in explains why the result looks plausible rather than obviously broken.
Does the Mix slider change the file, or just the preview?
Both — it is part of the render. Which is precisely why per-clip strength is worth having, and why a batch tool without one is a worse deal than it looks.