Color grading is the part of editing where most people either lose an entire evening or give up and post something that doesn’t look like what they saw on the day. So I built a set of presets to shortcut it, and I’ve been using them on my own paid work ever since.
WhoisMatt LUTs is a set of 12 video presets built around one priority: skin tones that look like actual human beings, with greens that stay put instead of taking over the whole frame. If you’ve ever graded a wedding on a lawn and watched everybody turn slightly radioactive, you know exactly the problem I’m talking about.
Have a look at the pack here, or keep reading and I’ll walk you through what’s in it.
What cameras do these work with?
All of them, near enough. Every LUT has been tested on footage from all the major brands so the look holds up consistently rather than falling apart the moment you switch bodies, and that testing gets updated as new cameras land. Right now that includes the Sony FX3, Canon R5 II, Nikon ZR and Panasonic S1 II.
As a Sony shooter it mattered to me that they work across the picture profiles you actually use, so SLOG3, SLOG2 and CINE4 are all covered.
Standard and LOG versions of everything
This is the bit people miss, and it’s the bit that saves you the most time. Every look ships in two versions: one for LOG footage and one for standard footage.
Whenever you drop a LOG LUT onto footage that isn’t LOG, you get a contrasty, crushed mess, and whenever you go the other way you get something flat and lifeless. Having both means you grab the right one and move on instead of fighting it, and it means the pack still works on the days you didn’t feel like shooting LOG.
What each look actually does
- WhoisMatt 01 — the original. Warm and vibrant with skin tones as the priority. If you only ever use one of these, it’s this one.
- WhoisMatt 02 — the same idea dialled back. Softer contrast and saturation, richer, good whenever you want mood without drama.
- WhoisMatt 03 — the punchiest of the set. Adds contrast and saturation without blowing out your highlights.
- WhoisMatt 04 — desaturates the greens so skin lifts off the background. This is the one for outdoor work and elopements.
- WhoisMatt 05 — my attempt at bottling an Iceland sunset, where the golden hour lasted for hours. High contrast, warm highlights, at any time of day.
- WhoisMatt 06 — if 05 is sunset, this is the blue hour after it. Cooler shadows, and skin really pops against them.
And if you want something with more attitude
There’s a second pack, WhoisMatt Moody LUTs, for whenever you want the grade itself to have a personality. Moody 01 is warm and bold while keeping skin accurate, Moody 02 pushes further into warm and romantic, and Moody 03 is the versatile one I reach for most.
These are stylised on purpose. They’re not the pack to reach for whenever a client wants their wedding to look exactly like it did in real life, and they’re absolutely the pack for a film that’s meant to feel like something.
A LUT is a starting point, not a finish line
Here’s the honest part, and it’s the same thing I’d tell you about anybody’s presets including mine. A LUT will not rescue badly exposed footage, and it will not fix a white balance you got wrong on the day.
Get your exposure and white balance close in camera, drop the LUT on, and then nudge it from there. Used that way it turns an evening of grading into a few minutes per clip, which is the entire reason I made them. Used as a magic fix button, it’ll disappoint you, and so would every other pack on the internet.