Lutify.me Update – You Now Can Export Created LUTs Directly

News

by Olaf von VossOctober 17^th, 2019

This is a quick (but rather huge) update on the previously covered online tool Lutify.me for creating and managing looks. The updated version is now capable of outputting your visual creations straight as a LUT file which you can then use in your host app of choice. On top of that main feature some additional controls are now ready for composing that perfect look.

Lutify.me online LUT Previewer.

I found the Lutify LUT Previewer is a pretty exciting tool when I first reported about it back in March 2019. Digging through heaps of pre-built LUTs never really satisfied me and I’m sure you’ll agree that a visual approach is much more seamless, satisfying and most importantly: productive. Lutify.me serves as an online service for allowing exactly that: Flick through LUTs, apply them to a still image of your choice, compare them, tweak them to taste, save intermediates, finalize your desired look. All in one sleek interface.

Lutify.me LUT Previewer

The update here is two-fold: First and foremost is the new ability to actually export your finalized look as a LUT. No need to recreate everything in your NLE again. That was the one major downside of the original Lutify for me. With that export functionality in place, you could think of the LUT Previewer as a dedicated LUT workspace for creating a desired look, distraction-free. Once finished, come back to your host app and continue where you left.

Image credit. Lutify.me

The second big update is a dedicated contrast control slider. It sits right next to the already existing exposure and white balance sliders. Tweaking the contrast opens up new possibilities in dialing in that perfect look. The very handy strength (opacity) slider is still there, of course.

Other improvements include the support for sRGB color managed images and a reworked CPU shader for more accurate results and snappier performance overall.

Lutify.me’s own Goran Ljubuncic put together a rather extensive video to walk you through all of these new features as well as a basic workflow when utilizing the LUT Previewer:

The LUT Previewer works a bit like a layered image editing app so you can stack different layers and each of them will contribute to the final look. Using layers makes it a bit more streamlined when working with lots of different values, controls and settings. But keep in mind that multiple stacked looks, each set to 100% opacity might end up in a rather nasty looking image.

Another neat feature is that everything updates in real time so every time you tweak any setting your image will update instantly. You really see what you get. This makes pretty granular changes really easy.

Pricing and Limitations

One thing to really keep in mind relates to the structure of differently priced tiers of the Lutify.me LUT Previewer. First, it is a subscription-based service. If you don’t like that, Lutify.me is not for you, unfortunately. Second, if you want to use your own LUTs (*.cubes format) instead of the ones Lutify.me offers, you are limited to the Professional tier.

Same goes for the aforementioned LUT export feature. So in context of this post, we’re talking about the Professional tier, only. Since the price drops to $19.90 after one year of usage for each tier, maybe this is worth the extra amount for the first year. You could see it as a one-time premium to spend.

I think this is a great tool, although I’m not a big fan of subscriptions. Creating LUTs in a dedicated workspace with handy but not overly complicated tools is a great way to dial in the desired look. It only works with stills for now, which I find sufficient – I’m not so sure if I want to upload giant video files just for creating a LUT, for me still images work just fine.

Link: LUT Previewer

Do you use something like Lutify.me for your workflow? If not, how do you manage all these LUTs? Share your experiences in the comments below!