# Color: filters, Adjust and LUTs

> Color filters, manual controls and auto balance, LUT looks and your own .cube files — for one clip or the whole reel, free and visible right away.

Source: https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/color/

A clip's color is set with three tools. **Filters** are ready-made looks: black and white, warm, vintage, cinematic and others, with adjustable strength. **Adjust** gives manual sliders for exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature and tint, plus **Auto** balance. **LUT** is a look on top of everything: ten built-in ones or your own `.cube` files. They combine: the filter comes first, then the manual settings, then the LUT.

Color helps bring clips shot in different light together into one reel, or set its mood.

**Demo (Web):**

1. Click a clip and press “Filters”
2. Pick “Warm” — the frame in the preview warms up
3. Drag “Strength” to 60
4. Click ✓ “Done”, then “Adjust”
5. Raise “Brightness” to 15 and “Saturation” to 20
6. Click “Apply to all clips” — the color is the same across the reel

## Filters

### 1. Open “Filters”

Select a clip and press **Filters**. With nothing selected, the button in the main set selects the clip at the playhead.

### 2. Pick a filter

Each tile shows four color samples (skin, sky, greenery, shadow) with that filter applied — you can see what it will do to the frame. Click a tile — the preview changes right away.

### 3. Set the strength

The **Strength** slider goes from 0 to 100: 100 is the full filter, lower is softer. **None** removes the filter.

| Filter | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **B&W** | Black and white with a bit more contrast |
| **Warm** | More red and yellow, slightly richer — cozy daylight |
| **Cool** | More blue, slightly calmer saturation |
| **Vintage** | Soft contrast, lifted shadows and a touch of sepia — like an old photo |
| **Sepia** | The brown tone of an old photograph |
| **Vivid** | Rich colors and added contrast |
| **Pastel** | Gentle muted colors, light shadows |
| **Noir** | Black and white with strong contrast and deep shadows |
| **Cinematic** | A film look: contrast, muted colors, warm highlights and cool shadows |

## Adjust

**Adjust** opens six sliders, each from −100 to 100 (0 means no change):

| Slider | What it changes |
| --- | --- |
| **Exposure** | The amount of light, like a camera's aperture: bright areas brighten more than dark ones |
| **Brightness** | The whole frame lighter or darker |
| **Contrast** | The difference between light and dark |
| **Saturation** | How rich the colors are; −100 gives black and white |
| **Temperature** | Plus — warmer (yellow-orange), minus — cooler (blue) |
| **Tint** | Plus — towards magenta, minus — towards green: removes the green cast of fluorescent lights |

The whole movement of one slider is one undo step.

### Auto balance

Above the sliders are two buttons. Both work without AI, from the clip's frames, and are free:

-   **Auto** balances the selected clip's color: removes an extra blue or yellow cast, lifts a dark or flat frame, tones down an overexposed one. The result is ordinary slider values you can fine-tune by hand.
-   **Match all to this** matches the color of the reel's other clips to the selected one: it gives them its filter and LUT and works out each clip's own **Adjust** sliders — brightness, contrast, saturation and temperature. Handy when clips were shot on different cameras or in different light.

**Auto** changes only the **Adjust** sliders — the filter and the LUT stay. One press of either button is one undo step.

## LUT

A LUT (Look-Up Table) is a ready-made look that maps every color of the frame to another one. It's how colorists give a reel a recognizable style. The LUT goes on top of the filter and the manual settings.

### 1. Open LUT

Select a clip and press **LUT**. With nothing selected, the button in the main set selects the clip at the playhead.

### 2. Pick a look

As with filters, each tile shows skin, sky, greenery and shadow samples with that LUT applied. Click a tile — the preview changes right away.

### 3. Set the strength

**Strength** blends the LUT with the original color: 100 is full strength, 50 is half. **None** removes the LUT.

Built-in looks:

| LUT | The look |
| --- | --- |
| **Teal & orange** | Cool teal shadows and warm highlights — the blockbuster classic |
| **Film** | Soft contrast, lifted blacks and warm highlights |
| **Matte** | Faded blacks, muted highlights and color |
| **Bleach bypass** | Hard contrast and half the color |
| **Golden hour** | Warm evening light and golden highlights |
| **Moody** | Deep cool shadows and muted color |
| **Nordic** | A cool, light tone with soft colors |
| **Cross process** | Yellow-green highlights and blue shadows, like film developed in the “wrong” chemicals |
| **B&W film** | Contrasty black and white with a slight warm tone |
| **Vibrant** | Bright, rich colors and a touch of contrast |

### Your own LUTs

**My LUTs** are your own looks: they're available in every project of your account, in the **LUT** panel and in the [Library](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/library/).

-   ****Import .cube**** — the “+” tile at the end of the row. A `.cube` file from DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, Final Cut or a LUT website works: a 3D table from 16 to 65 points, up to 2 MB.
-   ****Save as LUT**** — the selected clip's whole color (filter, **Adjust**, LUT and the **VHS** effect's color) becomes one `.cube` and appears in **My LUTs**. That way a look you found goes into other projects with one tap.
-   **Download or share** — for a selected LUT of your own: open the `.cube` file in another editor.
-   ****Delete LUT**** removes it from **My LUTs**; clips that used it are left without it.

An account holds up to 30 LUTs of your own.

**Web**

**Import .cube** opens a file picker on your computer, **Download .cube** saves the file to Downloads.

**iPhone and iPad**

You pick the `.cube` file in Files (iCloud Drive, On My iPhone, AirDrop). Share your LUT through the system menu — send it to a messenger, save it to Files or open it in another app.

## One color for the whole reel

The **Filters**, **Adjust** and **LUT** panels have an **Apply to all clips** button. It copies the selected clip's color — the filter with its strength, the manual settings and the LUT — to every clip of the reel. That's the easiest way to a consistent look.

> **Tip.** Set the color on the most typical clip, press **Apply to all clips**, and even out clips shot in different light with **Match all to this** in **Adjust**.

## Good to know

-   Clips with color show a filter badge on the strip.
-   The order is always the same: filter → **Adjust** → LUT → the **VHS** effect's color. The preview and the finished reel use one and the same color table, so the picture matches.
-   The preview draws color with the same formula as the final reel. On the web, color is drawn by the graphics card (WebGL): in an old browser without WebGL the preview shows the original colors, but the finished reel has the color.
-   The **VHS** effect adds its own color on top of the filter, settings and LUT ([Effects](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/effects/)).
-   Color is kept when you [split](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/fragments/) or duplicate a clip, and in a [freeze frame](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/freeze-replace/).
-   Color, auto balance and your own LUTs are free and don't spend tokens.

## What's next

-   [Library: every preset in one panel](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/library/)
-   [Effects](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/effects/)
-   [Frame, mask and background](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/editor/frame/)
-   [Export: presets and file settings](https://docs.slicer.media/en/guide/publish/export/)