Yes, you can make a LUT from a photo for free. A LUT generator reads the color and tone of a still you like, usually alongside a frame of your own footage, and writes a .cube file that moves your colors toward the photo's. You can do it in a grading app such as DaVinci Resolve, in a browser tool, or in the free Leumos LUT generator, which runs in your browser with no account, keeps your files on your computer and gives you a .cube at 17, 33 or 65 points.
A LUT made this way copies a look. It doesn't know what was in the photo or how it was lit, so the result is a starting point for your footage, and the steps below include where it stops.
Steps: from a photo to a .cube
These are the steps in the Leumos generator. Other tools use different names for the same choices.
- Pick the photo. Any still whose color you want: a film frame, a photo of yours, a frame from another shoot. A photo lit roughly like your footage (daylight with daylight, night with night) gives the match less to guess.
- Press Choose your footage and drop a JPG or PNG frame from your clip, or an MP4 or MOV of up to 10 seconds. With a clip, the look is fitted across the whole clip. If you skip this, the page's sample frame stands in, and the LUT fits that frame instead of yours.
- Under Your footage, leave Rec.709 for normal video. If you shot log, choose Camera log and pick your camera's format. You then get two files: one that converts the log to Rec.709 with the look, and one with the look alone for clips that are already Rec.709.
- Under Match a still, drop your photo. The preview splits into Your frame and With the LUT, so you can drag across and compare. Strength, Exposure, Warmth, Tint, Contrast and Saturation adjust the result.
- Under Points, pick 33: almost every editor reads it. Use 65 for finishing in DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, and 17 for a camera or monitor that asks for it. Then press Download .cube.
The preview is drawn through the same file you download, so what you see is what your editor will show.
Load the .cube in your editor
If you downloaded the log file, turn off your editor's own log conversion first, or the clip is converted twice and looks harsh and oversaturated. The look-only file goes on clips that are already Rec.709.
- In DaVinci Resolve, open Project Settings, Color Management, Lookup Tables, click Open LUT Folder, copy the file in and click Update Lists. On the Color page, right-click the clip's thumbnail or a node and pick the file from the 3D LUT submenu (Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 20 manual, Lookup Tables and "Using LUTs").
- In Premiere Pro, go to Lumetri Color, Basic Correction and choose the file under Input LUT. For the log file, set Modify, Interpret Footage, Color Management, Override Media Color Space to Rec.709 first, so Premiere does not convert the log itself.
- In Final Cut Pro, open the Effects browser, select Color and double-click Custom LUT. In the Video inspector, open the LUT pop-up menu, choose Choose Custom LUT and pick the file. For the log file, set Camera LUT to None in the Info inspector first (Apple's guide to applying LUTs).
- In CapCut desktop, open the Adjustment tab, select LUT, click Import and pick the 33-point file, then apply it to the clip (CapCut's LUT guide, desktop section).
The generator page has the same steps per editor, each with its source.
What a photo LUT can and can't do
A LUT is one fixed map from input color to output color. That sets its limits.
- A LUT copies a look. If one shot is a stop under and the next is too blue, the LUT moves both the same way, so they still differ afterward. Fix exposure and white balance per shot first, then put the look on.
- It can't see where a pixel is. Masks, vignettes, grain, glow and anything aimed only at faces stay out of the file. A strong look can push skin the same way it pushes a wall of the same color.
- It only knows the colors in your two pictures. A photo with no blue sky gives the match little to go on for your sky. Check the LUT on a few different shots before you commit to it.
- Log footage needs the right input. A LUT built for Rec.709 looks wrong on log, and a log LUT looks wrong on converted footage. In the generator that is the Your footage choice; elsewhere, convert first. The generator's list covers 14 log formats. DJI's D-Log M, used on Mini, Air and Osmo cameras, is a different curve and is not on it.
- HDR clips may look off. The generator warns when a clip is HDR. Grade those clips in a full grading app.
Other ways to make a LUT from a photo
From each maker's own page in November 2026; check it before you rely on one.
- DaVinci Resolve: bring the photo in as a Gallery reference or a timeline clip, grade to it by eye or with Shot Match, then Generate LUT for a 17, 33 or 65 point .cube.
- ChromaMimic, in the browser: give it an original frame and a reference still; it returns a .cube or .dng, plus a .png and a Lightroom .xmp.
- LUTSmith, in the browser: give it a reference frame, then preview your footage; it returns a .cube, and its page says "No account. No upload."
- The Leumos LUT generator, in the browser: give it a frame or a clip up to 10 seconds, and a still you like; it returns a .cube at 17, 33 or 65 points, with two files for log footage.
Read Blackmagic's guidance before you rely on Shot Match. It writes that Shot Match "isn't supposed to make your clips look good", only to bring them as close as it can to the clip you match to, and that it works best on normalized clips, not log-encoded ones. Photoshop can also write a .cube from adjustment layers on a frame of your footage. The steps, and Resolve's Generate LUT in detail, are in how to make a LUT from your grade.
If the look is a Lightroom preset
A preset is a set of slider moves, not a picture, so it needs one more step. In the generator, choose Photo app and download the test image. Apply your preset to it in Lightroom or another photo app, with vignette, grain and texture off, export it full size and drop it back. The colors that come back become the LUT.
When a LUT isn't the right tool
If you already grade in Resolve or Premiere, generate the LUT where the grade lives. If your shots need different fixes before a look goes on, one LUT can't do that job. In the Leumos studio each shot is matched to the still on its own, skin is adjusted without touching the scene, and on the Lite and Studio plans you can download a .cube of each shot's full grade.
For standard log to Rec.709 conversions, such as Sony S-Log3, there are ready-made files on the free LUTs page. To try a look from a photo on your own footage, open the LUT generator.