LuttieThe Kodak Portra 400 look
Portra 400 is Kodak's professional colour negative for portrait and wedding photographers, and its look is gentle: soft contrast, warm and natural skin, highlights that turn pastel rather than clipping. Luttie's Portrait 400 is shaped after it, and it defaults to the scan look, because a scanned negative is what people mean by "the Portra look".
Where it comes from
Kodak made the Portra line for people who photograph skin for a living, so it is built around flattering, believable skin tones and a very forgiving exposure range. Photographers famously overexpose it by a stop or two: the negative holds the highlights, and the scan comes out bright, airy and pastel. Almost everyone sees Portra as a scan rather than a darkroom print, which is why the familiar look is softer and lower in contrast than cinema film printed for projection.
How to grade it
In order. Every control below exists in the Luttie editor, free to use in your browser.
Film panel → Portrait 400
Pick Portrait 400 as the negative.
Print → Scan
Keep it on Scan. The Portra look is a scanned negative; a print stage adds contrast Portra isn't known for.
Exposure
+0.7 to +1 EV reproduces the overexposed, airy Portra scan. Back off if highlights lose all their colour.
Scan balance
Warm it slightly with Blue +2, or cool it with Red +2. More light on a colour means less of it in the image.
Crosstalk
Around 70–90 for softer, more pastel colour; 100 is the stock as modelled.
Export
Export a .cube (Luttie Pro) for Resolve, Premiere or Final Cut, or a graded image straight from the editor.
When it works
Portraits and weddings — skin stays warm and natural rather than orange
Bright, airy lifestyle and travel photos
Golden-hour light, which Portra renders soft rather than saturated
Anything that should feel analogue without looking like a filter
When to avoid it
Moody, high-contrast or saturated work — Portra is deliberately gentle, so a punchy look is better served by Vivid 100 or a Cinema Print. It also flatters little in harsh midday light on grey subjects, where there's no warmth for it to work with.
Frequently asked
You can put the Portra look on your own photos and footage free in Luttie's browser editor, and download the graded image. Exporting it as a .cube LUT to use in other apps is part of Luttie Pro.
Colour negative film holds far more highlight detail than shadow detail, so giving it extra light moves the whole image up its curve: shadows get cleaner, colours go pastel and skin gets luminous. That bright, soft scan is the look most people associate with Portra. In Luttie, raising Exposure does the same thing to the model.
Lightroom can't load a .cube file directly, but Adobe Camera Raw can build one into a profile that Lightroom then uses. Photoshop's Color Lookup adjustment layer takes a .cube as-is.
No. Portrait 400 is shaped after the character of Portra's published curves — low contrast, wide latitude — with its warm skin rendering chosen by eye. It hasn't been measured against real film, and Luttie isn't affiliated with Kodak.
Build it on your own footage
Drop in a photo or pull a frame from a video, grade it in the browser, and export a .cube LUT for DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or CapCut.
Related looks
Kodak and Portra are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company. Luttie isn't affiliated with Kodak; its film stocks are inspired by published data about real films, not copies of them.