Shotcut tutorial · companion page
LUT (3D) has no strength slider — a LUT is either fully on or gone. Four filters stacked in one exact order give it one: Mask: Simple Shape, Opacity, LUT (3D), Mask: Apply. The Opacity Level then becomes the intensity dial.
Reading in another language? Use the translate picker in the header, or your browser’s own translate command — the Shotcut filter, control and value names are marked to stay in English so they still match what is on your screen.
Four filters on one clip. Not four effects — one effect, made of four parts, where three of them do nothing useful on their own. Put them in any other order and you get either the full-strength grade or a faded picture.
Added first, with Width and Height dragged from their default 10.00 % up to 100.00 % so the shape covers the entire frame. Operation stays on Overwrite and Shape on Rectangle.
Added second and left at 100 % while you build. Because it sits inside the masked stretch, it controls how strongly that stretch is composited — not how visible your clip is.
The same filter that had no strength control when it was alone on the clip. Here it grades the layer that Opacity is about to blend, so its output inherits an intensity it never had.
No settings, no panel, purely positional. It ends the masked stretch and hands the result back — and then Opacity decides how much of it you see against the ungraded picture.
[ Not until I talked to the creator of Shotcut himself, who taught me that there is a way, but it is somewhat of a workaround ]
Ben Espanto · 2:53
The video carries twenty-four machine-generated chapters — roughly one every twenty seconds. Those were used as a map and consolidated into the twelve sections below; every start time here is one of the video’s own chapter boundaries. Click any screencap or timestamp to play that section from its exact second, right here in the card. Quotes are transcribed verbatim from the audio.
“So, you downloaded a bunch of LUTs to help you with color grading and color correcting, but you realized that once you’ve applied the LUTs in Shotcut, you found that the colors may have been too strong, and you couldn’t find a way to tone the intensity down.”
Graded footage from the opening montage. A LUT either lands or it overwhelms — and in Shotcut the filter that applies one has no strength control at all.
“Before we get started, this tutorial is done on Shotcut version 21.03.21.”
Help → About Shotcut confirms it on screen: Shotcut version 21.03.21. Every filter name, panel layout and default below is what that release shows. The four filters used here still carry the same names on current builds.
“I’m going to type in LUT, load the LUT, and then under open, I’m going to choose one of the LUTs in my LUT library.”
One clip, video1.mp4, on one track, V1. Open Filters, press the + icon, type lut, choose LUT (3D). The Open... button opens the file browser and McKinnon 75.CUBE loads. This is the method that fails, and it is worth doing once so the failure is obvious.
“If you notice in the LUT box here, there really isn’t any other setting. You couldn’t change the intensity of the LUT.”
This is the whole LUT (3D) panel: an Open... button showing McKinnon 75.CUBE, and Interpolation set to Trilinear. No amount, no mix, no blend. The grade is all or nothing.
“So first and foremost, we’re going to dump the original LUT. And we’re going to apply what the creator of ShotCut told me to be able to control the intensity of a LUT.”
The filter list is emptied back to Add a filter. The workaround is not something added on top of the existing LUT (3D) — the stack has to be built from nothing, in one specific order, and the LUT is not the first thing in it.
“Instead of loading the LUT filter, what we need to load first is mask simple shape. And in those settings, what we need to focus on are the width and the height.”
Type mask into the filter search and pick Mask: Simple Shape — not Mask: Apply, not Mask: From File. It arrives with Width and Height at 10.00 % each; drag both to 100.00 % so the mask covers the entire picture. Operation stays on Overwrite and Shape on Rectangle.
“The next filter we need to load is the opacity filter to click opacity. And at this point, we’re not going to do anything to that opacity filter, we’re just going to leave it at that.”
Opacity carries one control, Level, sitting at its default 100 %. It looks pointless at this moment. It is the intensity dial — it simply has nothing to act on until the two filters after it exist.
“The third filter, again, we’re going to click the plus icon is finally the LUT filter. And again, we’re going to choose like, let’s say bourbon, right?”
The same filter that failed on its own, added again — this time after the mask and after the opacity. Open... loads Bourbon 64.CUBE and Interpolation is still Trilinear. Nothing about the filter changed; only its position in the stack did.
“And last but not least, a fourth filter. And this one is mask, apply. Now I know that’s a lot of filters to load just to be able to control the LUT, but just bear with me here.”
Mask: Apply has no settings of its own — select it and the panel below the list is empty. Its job is positional: it ends the masked stretch that Mask: Simple Shape opened, so everything between the two is treated as one layer.
“You actually go back to the opacity filter that we loaded that we didn’t touch in the beginning. And now we can use the opacity setting. See how I’m moving it back and forth and it’s changing the intensity of the LUT.”
Select Opacity, second in the list, and drag Level. It reads 68 % in this frame. Nothing else is ever touched again — that one slider is the entire control surface the LUT (3D) filter never had.
“So now we can go to the opacity filter right above it and drop it down a little bit and only apply 50%. And now it looks a little bit more normal.”
Arabica 12.CUBE is swapped in for Bourbon 64.CUBE and is much stronger. Dropped to 49 % the grade roughly halves — and the picture does not get darker, which is the tell that Opacity is blending the graded frame back against the original rather than fading it toward black. Ben says “50” aloud; the panel reads 49 %, because he is dragging the slider rather than typing a number.
“A lot of times LUTs that have been created specifically for Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve were purposely done with more intense colors because in those programs, you actually have the capability of dialing it down.”
The folder on screen holds twenty-four .CUBE files. Packs built for Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve are deliberately punchy because those editors have a strength control; with this stack Shotcut has one too, so those packs become usable. Ben closes by offering his own LUT set free — subscribe, like, and comment “I want your LUTs”.
Every number below was read off the screen in the video. Nothing here is a recommended-sounding guess — if a value is not stated, it is because it was never shown.
Drag the clip from the Playlist into the Timeline. One clip, one track — this technique needs no second copy and no extra video track, which is what separates it from most blend tricks in Shotcut.
Select that clip and open the Filters panel. Everything from here happens in one filter list.
Add LUT (3D) on its own, load a .CUBE file, and look at the panel: an Open... button and an Interpolation dropdown. That is everything the filter has. There is no strength, amount or mix control to find.
Remove that filter before continuing. The workaround is a different stack, not an addition to this one.
Press +, type mask in the search, and choose Mask: Simple Shape. Four results come back — 360: Equirectangular Mask, Mask: Apply, Mask: From File and Mask: Simple Shape — and only the last one is right. Then drag Width and Height from their default 10.00 % all the way to 100.00 %.
Rotation and Softness are left at their defaults on screen and never mentioned. The mask is not being used to shape anything here — it is being used to cover the frame completely, which is why Width and Height are the only two values that get touched.
Press + again and add Opacity. Its one control, Level, is already at 100 %. Leave it there. Touching it now would only confuse the picture while the stack is half built.
Opacity must sit between Mask: Simple Shape and LUT (3D). Above the mask it fades your clip out; below the lut it does not blend the grade.
Press +, type lut, add LUT (3D), and load your .CUBE file with Open.... Then press + one last time and add Mask: Apply. It has no settings — selecting it shows an empty panel, which is correct.
This is the order the whole technique rests on. The video demonstrates only this sequence; reorder it and you are on your own.
Select Opacity, second in the list, and drag Level down. The grade weakens as the number falls and the picture stays exposed. Values shown on screen while Ben works the slider: 100 %, 74 %, 68 %, 49 %, 43 %.
Ben says “50” aloud at 5:57; the panel reads 49 %, because he is dragging rather than typing. Treat the number as taste, not as a target — there is no correct value.
Read directly off the frames of the video. Where a value changed on screen, the tuning path is shown separately below.
| Setting | Value | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| Shotcut version | 21.03.21 | Help → About Shotcut |
| Source clip | video1.mp4 | Playlist |
| Clip duration | 00:00:14:20 | Playlist |
| Timeline | V1 only, one clip, no second track | Timeline |
| Method that fails | LUT (3D) alone on the clip | Filters |
| LUT (3D) controls, in full | Open... · Interpolation | LUT (3D) |
| Interpolation | Trilinear | LUT (3D) |
| Filter 1 | Mask: Simple Shape | Top of the list |
| Operation | Overwrite | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Shape | Rectangle | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Horizontal | 50.00 % | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Vertical | 50.00 % | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Width | 10.00 % → 100.00 % | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Height | 10.00 % → 100.00 % | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Rotation | 0.0 deg (default, untouched) | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Softness | 20.00 % (default, untouched) | Mask: Simple Shape |
| Filter 2 | Opacity | Second in the list |
| Level while building | 100 % | Opacity |
| Filter 3 | LUT (3D) | Third in the list |
| LUT shown | McKinnon 75.CUBE · Bourbon 64.CUBE · Arabica 12.CUBE | Open... |
| Filter 4 | Mask: Apply | Bottom of the list |
| Mask: Apply controls | None — the settings panel is empty | Mask: Apply |
| Intensity control, final | Opacity → Level | Second filter, adjusted last |
| Time | LUT loaded | Level | What is happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:00 | none yet | 100 % | Default on adding the filter |
| 5:00 | Bourbon 64.CUBE | 100 % | Stack complete, grade at full strength |
| 5:10 | Bourbon 64.CUBE | 68 % | First demonstration of the slider |
| 5:30 | choosing a new one | — | File browser open on twenty-four .CUBE files |
| 5:40 | Arabica 12.CUBE | 100 % | Stronger LUT, full strength — too much |
| 5:50 | Arabica 12.CUBE | 49 % | Dialled back — the “50” Ben says aloud |
| 6:02 | Arabica 12.CUBE | 43 % | Swept lower to show the range |
| 6:10 | Arabica 12.CUBE | 74 % | Swept back up |
Level is never typed in the video — every value above is a resting point of a drag. There is no default worth memorising and no correct number; the point of the technique is that the number exists at all.
| Files on the Desktop, as listed | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabica 12.CUBE | Ava 614.CUBE | Azrael 93.CUBE | Bourbon 64.CUBE |
| Byers 11.CUBE | Chemical 168.CUBE | Clayton 33.CUBE | Clouseau 54.CUBE |
| Cobi 3.CUBE | Contrail 35.CUBE | Cubicle 99.CUBE | Django 25.CUBE |
| Domingo 145.CUBE | Faded 47.CUBE | Folger 50.CUBE | Fusion 88.CUBE |
| Hyla 68.CUBE | Korben 214.CUBE | Lenox 340.CUBE | Lucky 64.CUBE |
| McKinnon 75.CUBE | Milo 5.CUBE | Neon 770.CUBE | Paladin 1875.CUBE |
Twenty-four files, counted from the dialog. The list is scrolled to the top and may continue below the visible area, so treat twenty-four as the number shown rather than the size of the folder.
Machine transcribed from the video audio. Spoken phrasing is left as-is; only the product and filter names Whisper mangled have been corrected. Every timestamp plays the video in the hero from that second.
So, you downloaded a bunch of LUTs to help you with color grading and color correcting,
but you realized that once you’ve applied the LUTs in Shotcut, you found that the colors
may have been too strong, and you couldn’t find a way to tone the intensity down.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to control the intensity of your LUTs, so stay
tuned.
I’m just a normal person with no video editing background. I wanted to start making
YouTube videos and maybe cool transitions and effects. I don’t really plan on being a
professional video editor, so I was looking for a free, easy to learn video editing
software. Luckily, I stumbled on Shotcut, a free, open-source video editing program
that can do many of the tricks you can do on more enterprise video editors like Adobe
Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, but with a much simpler and leaner interface, thus
dramatically shortening the learning curve. It just takes using your imagination. So let’s
learn together.
Before we get started, this tutorial is done on Shotcut version 21.03.21.
Okay, so let’s first look at the traditional way of applying a LUT to a video in Shotcut.
So I’m just going to drag this video here on my timeline. Just play it for a sec here.
Okay, so that’s a video, and what we can do is we can immediately go to filters,
and if I wanted to change the colors of this using a LUT, I’m going to go to the plus icon.
I’m going to type in LUT, load the LUT, and then under open, I’m going to choose one
of the LUTs in my LUT library. Let’s just pick, let’s say, McKinnon, and then
all of a sudden it changed the color. It applied the LUT. And so this was the original video,
and this is the new one with the LUT applied. The one thing, though, that you’re going to
notice is that what if the intensity of this LUT was too much, like the colors were too
strong, or you only wanted half intensity? If you notice in the LUT box here, there
really isn’t any other setting. You couldn’t change the intensity of the LUT. And so for
a long while, I thought there really wasn’t a way for you to modify a LUT within Shotcut.
Not until I talked to the creator of Shotcut himself, who taught me that there is a way,
but it is somewhat of a workaround. And I’m going to show you what he showed me. So first
and foremost, we’re going to dump the original LUT. And we’re going to apply what the creator
of Shotcut told me to be able to control the intensity of a LUT. So again, we’re
starting with the original video, but instead of loading the LUT filter, what we need
to load first is mask simple shape. And in those settings, what we need to focus on are
the width and the height. And we need to bring the width all the way to 100% and we need
to bring the height also to 100%. And we’re done with that filter. The next filter we
need to load is the opacity filter to click opacity. And at this point, we’re not going
to do anything to that opacity filter, we’re just going to leave it at that. The third
filter, again, we’re going to click the plus icon is finally the LUT filter. And again,
we’re going to choose like, let’s say bourbon, right? And last but not least,
a fourth filter. And this one is mask, apply. Now I know that’s a lot of filters to load
just to be able to control the LUT, but just bear with me here. Okay, so once again, we’ve
loaded four filters in our filter box. And I’m going to toggle the LUT on and off
so that you see what it looks like with or without it. Okay. So now we’ve applied the LUT.
And here’s how you control the intensity. You actually go back to the opacity filter that
we loaded that we didn’t touch in the beginning. And now we can use the opacity setting.
See how I’m moving it back and forth and it’s changing the intensity of the LUT.
That’s how you control the LUT. Now this LUT is actually a little subtle. So I’m going to
load another LUT. Let’s see if Arabica makes a difference here. Okay, so Arabica is a little
bit more intense. And so say you loaded this LUT and you’re thinking, Oh man, it just
muddied up my video. And it just, it just doesn’t look good. And so now we can go
to the opacity filter right above it and drop it down a little bit and only apply 50%. And
now it looks a little bit more normal. Or we can drop it down to as low as you want
or as high as you want. See that? So that’s a little hack that we’ve done here.
The creator of Shotcut taught me to be able to control the LUT. So now you can just download
all the LUTs you want from all these LUT creators. And then you have the capability of now controlling
the opacity, knowing that a lot of times LUTs that have been created specifically for
Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve were purposely done with more intense colors because in
those programs, you actually have the capability of dialing it down. Now you can download those
types of LUTs, stick it in Shotcut. And even though they’re super intense in color, you
can now dial it down and apply it to your videos. And so now your potential library
of LUTs has just expanded. Speaking of LUTs, if you’ve followed me for a while, you
know that I’ve also created my own set of LUTs that I’m giving away for free. Now all you
have to do if you haven’t been able to download my LUTs yet, all you have to do is first and
foremost, subscribe to my channel, like this video. And third, write a comment in the
comments section below saying, I want your LUTs. And that’s it. The minute I see that in
the comments, I’m going to reach out to you. I’m going to ask for your email address so
that I can send the LUTs to that email. And that’s it. In any case, I hope you enjoyed
this new tutorial. And if you have any other tutorial suggestions, also make a comment
below. So with that being said, I’ll see you next time.
