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Where CapCut keeps its colour controls on desktop, phone and web, the order to use them in, and what to do when a tool you need sits behind the Pro badge.
To color grade in CapCut on a computer, select the clip in the timeline, open the Adjustment tab and work through it in order: neutralise the colour with temperature and tint, set saturation, then shape the look with HSL, Color wheel and Curve. A custom LUT goes on through Adjustment > LUT > Import, which accepts .cube and .3dl files and has its own intensity slider. On the phone app, tap the clip, then Adjust, where a one-tap colour correction and basic sliders live.
CapCut doesn’t publish a help article for its colour tools, so the steps below follow its own resource pages from August and September 2026, and we flag the places where those pages disagree. If you’d rather not install anything, the colour grading tool on this site does the same jobs in a browser tab, and the LUT page explains what a LUT actually changes.
CapCut’s own pages place the Adjustment tab in different panels, so if it isn’t where you expect, look on both sides of the preview with the clip selected.
Click the clip in the timeline so the editing panel shows its settings, then choose the Adjustment tab. Everything in the next steps applies to that clip only.
In the basic sliders, move temperature and tint until something that should be white or grey looks neutral, then set saturation and vibrance. If your version offers a one-click colour correction, treat its result as a draft and fine-tune from there.
Use HSL to calm or shift a single hue, such as a green that glows or a sky that’s too cyan. Push shadows and highlights towards different colours with Color wheel, and use Curve for contrast or a gentle tint in one channel.
Go to Adjustment > LUT > Import, pick a .cube or .3dl file, then lower the intensity slider until the look sits comfortably on your footage. Most creative LUTs look best somewhere between half and three-quarters strength.
The Adjustment tab is the home of colour on the desktop app. CapCut’s pages list basic sliders for temperature, tint, saturation, vibrance, contrast, highlights, shadows, exposure, brightness and sharpening, alongside HSL, Color wheel, Curve and Relight. Separately, the Filter panel holds ready-made looks with their own intensity control. Filters and adjustments stack, so a filter on top of a hand-built grade can double up the effect; pick one approach for the look and use the other sparingly.
Tap the clip, then Adjust. CapCut describes two automatic options there, Color correction and Color match, plus manual sliders for brightness, contrast, saturation, brilliance and sharpness. Apply all copies the settings to every clip in the project, which is the quickest way to keep a sequence consistent. We found no CapCut page that describes importing a .cube or .3dl file in the phone app, so check your version before relying on it.
The web version groups colour under Basic > Color adjustment, with an AI color correction button, sliders, HSL and Curves. CapCut’s online colour page says it accepts .cube and .3dl files too. Like everything in CapCut’s web editor, the footage is uploaded to work on it.
CapCut’s Standard vs Pro help page (April 2026) names premium templates and assets, cloud storage, and AI features such as camera tracking, auto captions and avatars as Pro. It doesn’t mention LUTs, Adjust, HSL, curves, colour match or filters either way, and its LUT guide shows no paywall on import. In practice Pro items in the app carry a diamond badge, so that’s the thing to look for: if the tool you want shows a diamond in your region and version, it may require Pro.
When a single control is locked, you can usually get the same result another way. Curve can stand in for many HSL moves, the colour wheels can replace a warm or cool filter, and a LUT can carry an entire look. If the LUT importer itself is locked, a grade built elsewhere can still be baked into the clip before it goes into CapCut.
CapCut’s pages don’t describe a colour-managed conversion for log clips, so the dependable route is the camera maker’s own conversion LUT, imported through Adjustment > LUT > Import and kept at full strength. Do that before any creative LUT, and don’t stack a second conversion on top. Our log to Rec.709 guide lists where each maker publishes its LUTs, and iPhone owners can follow the Apple Log page.
Skin is the best check you have. If faces drift orange or green while you push a look, back off the intensity or use HSL on the orange band rather than fighting it with temperature, which would shift everything else as well.
If you want to avoid Pro badges or uploads, colorgrade.video runs entirely on your device and has no paid tier. Auto colour balances white and sets gentle levels, the Looks gallery offers about 300 original looks with an Intensity slider, and Pro tools holds Wheels, Curves, HSL and a LUT tab where Import LUT takes .cube and .3dl files at no cost. Match colours lines one clip up with a reference frame or photo.
It also works the other way round. Build a grade here, press Export .cube (Shift+L) and load the file into CapCut desktop with Adjustment > LUT > Import, so the colour travels with you into the edit. A LUT only holds colour, so Grain, Vignette, Halation and Bloom stay behind; add those in CapCut if you need them. Every look in the gallery can be saved this way, which is what our free LUTs are.
Select the clip, open the Adjustment tab and go to LUT > Import. Choose a .cube or .3dl file, apply it, and set the intensity slider. Conversion LUTs for log footage should stay at full strength; creative looks usually need less.
CapCut’s own pages describe LUT import only for the desktop and web editors, and we couldn’t confirm that the phone app imports .cube or .3dl files. One workaround is to apply the LUT elsewhere first, for example with Import LUT on our LUT page, and bring the finished clip into the CapCut app.
Probably for most of it, but CapCut doesn’t say. Its Standard vs Pro page doesn’t list LUTs, HSL, curves or colour match as Pro features. Watch for the diamond badge in the app, which marks Pro items, because availability can change by version and region.
CapCut names this differently on each version (Color correction, Auto adjust, AI color correction). Switching the same option off, lowering its intensity where there is a slider, or undoing straight after applying it removes the change. Your manual sliders are separate and stay as you set them.
Not with a documented colour-managed setting. Import the camera maker’s log-to-Rec.709 LUT through Adjustment > LUT > Import and leave it at full intensity, then grade on top. In a browser, the Footage menu in Pro tools converts many camera log formats without a LUT.
Check that a filter or a second adjustment isn’t stacked on the same clip, and that the preview isn’t showing a proxy. Phone players and social apps can also display HDR or wide-colour files differently from CapCut’s preview, so test the exported file on the device people will watch it on.
Yes. Grade a frame on colorgrade.video, choose Export .cube with LUT size 33 or 65, and import the file into CapCut desktop. Grain, vignette, halation and bloom aren’t part of a LUT, so those effects don’t come across.