LuttieColor Checker LUT
Own a colour chart? Shoot it, mark it in a frame, and get a LUT that corrects that camera's colour. You see the colour error before and after, and the corrected frame, before deciding whether to download it.
How to shoot the chart
Light it evenly
Put the chart where your subject will be, in the light you are shooting in. No shadow across it and no bright reflection on the patches.
Fill a good part of the frame
A quarter of the frame or more. Each patch needs enough pixels to give a clean reading.
Expose normally
The white patch must not clip and the black patch must not be crushed. If the white patch reads pure white, stop down and shoot again.
Face it to the camera
A slight angle is fine, and it helps avoid glare. The corners you mark correct for perspective.
Lock your settings
Use the white balance, picture profile and exposure you will shoot with. The LUT is only right for those settings and that light.
What the correction contains
Two corrections are tried and the more accurate one is kept. The first is a single colour matrix, which handles exposure, white balance and the way a sensor mixes its channels. The second adds a tone curve read from the six grey patches, for cameras whose picture profile adds its own contrast. If your camera is already closer to the chart than either can get it, the tool says so and makes no LUT.
A correction LUT is a technical step, not a look. It goes first, before any creative grade, and it is specific to one camera, one picture profile and one kind of light. Daylight and tungsten each need their own.
Where it goes in your editor
| Software | Where to apply the correction LUT |
|---|---|
| DaVinci Resolve | On the first node of the clip, or as an input LUT in the clip's settings. Grade on the nodes after it. |
| Premiere Pro | Lumetri Color, Basic Correction, Input LUT. Creative looks go in the Creative tab. |
| Final Cut Pro | The Custom LUT effect, placed above your other colour effects. |
| CapCut desktop | Adjustment, LUT, then import the file. Add other adjustments after it. |
No chart yet?
This needs a real, physical chart in your shot. A chart shown on a screen or printed at home doesn't have known colours, so it can't calibrate a camera. Luttie's digital chart is for a different job: testing what a LUT or a grade does to known colours, which the accuracy checker measures.
Frequently asked questions
What does a color checker LUT do?
It corrects your camera's colour to a known standard. A colour chart has 24 patches whose true colours are published. Comparing how your camera recorded them with what they should be gives a correction for exposure, white balance and colour, and saving that as a LUT applies the same correction to every clip shot on that camera in that light.
Which charts does it work with?
Any chart with the classic 24-patch layout: six columns by four rows, with the grey ramp along one long edge. That includes the Calibrite and X-Rite ColorChecker Classic, the Passport's classic target, and compatible 24-patch cards from other makers. Charts with a different layout, such as 140-patch or video-specific targets, aren't supported.
Does it work with log footage?
Not directly. The correction assumes ordinary Rec.709 or sRGB footage. Convert log footage to Rec.709 first with your camera maker's LUT, take the frame from the converted clip, and put the correction LUT after the conversion.
How do I use the LUT to match two cameras?
Shoot the same chart in the same light on both cameras, make a correction LUT for each, and apply each camera's LUT to its own clips. Both are then corrected to the same reference, so they match each other. Put any creative look after the corrections.
What is free and what needs Pro?
Reading the chart, the colour error before and after, and the corrected preview are free with no account. Downloading the correction as a .cube file is part of Luttie Pro, like the editor's LUT export.
How accurate is it?
It depends on the shot, which is why the tool shows the average colour error as ΔE2000 before and after instead of promising a number. Below about ΔE 2 is hard to see; above 5 is a visible shift. Glare, uneven light, a chart that fills too little of the frame, and heavy compression all make the result worse.
Is my footage uploaded?
No. The frame is read in your browser and never leaves your computer.
ColorChecker is a registered trademark of X-Rite, Incorporated. Luttie is not affiliated with X-Rite or Calibrite.
Corrected the camera? Now build the look.
Open a clip in the editor, load your correction LUT, and grade on top of it.
Open the editor →