Two slots, two jobs
Lumetri Colour puts LUTs in two places and they are not alternatives.
| Slot | Where | For |
|---|---|---|
| Input LUT | Basic Correction | Converting flat footage — S-Log3, D-Log, C-Log |
| Look | Creative | A style, on top of a corrected image |
Getting these the wrong way round is the single most common Premiere colour problem. A conversion loaded into Creative sits *after* your corrections, so every adjustment you made was made on flat footage and is now being mapped by a curve that expected the original. It looks almost right, which is what makes it expensive.
The rule is the same one that governs LUTs everywhere: convert first, style second. The reasoning is in what a LUT is.
Applying a LUT to one clip
Select the clip, open Lumetri Colour, Basic Correction → Input LUT → Browse, and
pick the .cube. For a creative look, Creative → Look → Browse instead, where
the Intensity slider underneath does what its name says.
To make a look reusable, save the Lumetri settings as a preset and drag it onto clips from the Effects panel.
Applying one LUT to a whole bin
The per-clip route does not scale past a handful. The bin route:
- Select every clip in the bin.
- Right-click → Modify → Interpret Footage.
- Under Colour, set the LUT.
This attaches the LUT to the footage itself, before it reaches any timeline, so every instance of every clip inherits it. It is the closest thing Premiere has to a batch conversion, and it is where people land after discovering that dragging a preset onto a bin behaves inconsistently.
The catch is the same one Resolve has: every clip gets the same amount. The one shot into the sun takes the conversion exactly as hard as the rest, and dialling it back means going into that clip and doing it by hand.
The export setting that changes your colour
Worth knowing before you batch-export anything: Media Encoder can apply its own colour management on the way out, and clips that looked correct in the timeline come out different in the file. If a batch export comes back looking washed or crushed compared to the timeline, that is where to look first — the LUT is usually not the culprit.
This is not hypothetical. It is a recurring complaint from people exporting eighty LOG clips at once, and the answer is the Interpret Footage route above rather than a preset dragged onto a selection.
When Premiere is the right tool, and when it is not
| The job | Premiere | A batch tool |
|---|---|---|
| An edit with a grade | Yes | No |
| Converting a card for delivery | Interpret Footage + export | Drop the folder in |
| Different strength per clip | Per clip, by hand | A slider each |
| Photos and video in one pass | No | Yes |
| Costs a subscription | Yes | No |
Premiere is an editor and a good one. Converting forty clips that nobody has edited yet is not editing — it is file processing, and it does not need a timeline.
That is what BatchTone does on macOS: a folder in, one
.cube across photos and clips together, a strength dial on every file, audio
copied untouched, exports named before the run and originals never modified.
Seven-day trial, everything unlocked.
Common questions
Where does Premiere keep its LUTs?
It reads them from anywhere via Browse, and also from its own Lumetri folders if you want them listed in the dropdowns. Browse is simpler and does not need a restart.
Why does my LUT look stronger in Premiere than in Resolve?
Usually because it is in the wrong slot, or because the clip's colour space is being interpreted differently. Check Interpret Footage before you blame the file.
Can I change the strength of an Input LUT?
Not directly — the Input slot has no intensity control. The Creative Look slot does. The practical workaround is to grade the clip back toward the original, which is a worse version of what a strength dial gives you for free.
What about a folder of stills?
Premiere will not usefully batch photos. Those go through Lightroom or Photoshop, with the trade-offs in batch editing in Lightroom and the Photoshop action route.