FAQ: Premiere Pro Lumetri Color Custom LUT directory and location

[Kevin-Monahan]

Lumetri Color Custom LUT directory

Common question: Where do I place custom and third party LUTs?
You may have read on the internet that you can add LUTs to the Premiere Pro application folder. DO NOT DO THIS!

Though placing LUTs in folders in the app package can work for a single user within Premiere Pro, the workflow falls apart once you update Premiere Pro to a new version, share a project, or even send a sequence to Adobe Media Encoder.

Beginning in version 12.1.2, follow these instructions for installing custom LUT files and to have them appear in the Lumetri Color panel. You can also share the project and export in AME with this technique.

You can install custom LUT files and have them appear in the Lumetri Color panel. To install custom LUT files, create one or more of the directories listed below and then copy your custom LUT files to that folder.

Adobe Documentation: Install Custom LUT files

Custom LUT directories	macOS	Windows
Available only to the local user	/Users/<user_name>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/LUTs/Creative /Users/<user_name>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/LUTs/Technical	C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Creative C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Technical
Available to all users	/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/LUTs/Creative /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/LUTs/Technical	C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Creative C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Technical

Premiere Pro scans the folders at launch and loads LUT files from these directories. LUTs in the Creative directories appear in the Creative Looks dropdown, and LUTs in the Technical directories appear in the Input LUT menu.

[R Neil Haugen]

Yes, that could very well be it. From what I can gather, it maxes out somewhere around a 100 added LUTs or so. Not sure what the number is, or how it's calculated.

Many of us users have pushed for say the ability to have subfolders ... and have them 'show' ... so you could say, select a subfolder on the dropdown list, and see what's in that subfolder. Which would be awesome for organizational use. And therefore finding specific LUTs as needed.

[Xabi1986]

Thanks Neil.

As of today, is there any solution to solve this problem?

[R Neil Haugen]

Nope. We still don't have folders available for use with LUT storage/organization.

[Kevin-Monahan]

The product team is aware of this issue and is working on a solution. Stay tuned!

Thanks,
Kevin

[Xabi1986]

Hi Kevin

Thanks for your answere. For us is very important solve this issue as soon as posible.

[Baffy19]

Support. Folder structuring is absolutely necessary here, otherwise it's chaos to search for and add the LUT you need. And we all know that it should be comfortable and clear.

[MLu91]

When I put them in the "App Folder" and I select a LUT in Lumetri, the drop down menu "sticks" to it. Meaning: when I open the dropdown menu, the LUT is selected. 

BUT, when I put them inside the "Application Support" folder, Premiere Pro behaves strage. It seems to forget, what LUT I selected. The dropdown in Lumetri dies not remember the postion (Neither does the little preview screen below. It allwasy starts with the top lut when I circle throug the luts. This is very annoying. Why is this happening?

[ashley2758971421nb]

thank you!

[Tuhin S Polley]

March 2024 and now the directory is this : C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro 2024\Lumetri\LUTs\Creative

[R Neil Haugen]

Use that at your own peril, of course. It's the wrong place for user added LUTs, but go ahead!

Add any LUTs to that, and you change what LUTs are used on any previous selection if any LUT you add will sort to a 'higher' (earlier) place in alpha-numeric sorting.

Say you apply "AlphablueCheese" to a clip.

Now, you add a LUT called "A 1" to the folder.

Go back to that sequence. A different LUT is now applied, as what you did changed the sort order.

Besides, if you work with Ae or send an export to MediaEncoder, the LUT you applied won't get used either place.

That's why it's important to use the correct locations, as specified, for USER added LUTs.

[Mario272924196baf]

Hi Guys,

I cant find my LUT Folder...

Thanks!

Best,

Mario

[MLu91]

Hallo Mario. 

Es gibt auch einen Library Folger unter "Benutzer:innen". Versuche es mal da.

[braydon]

Hi @Kevin-Monahan - could you please update these instructions to take into account that the 'Technical' and 'Creative' folders no longer exist by default on a fresh install, and the user must create the folders themself before copying LUTs in? 

This is a post I refer to regularly, it's invaluable for me - especially with so much incorrect information out there about where to put LUTs. Thank you for providing it to us.

[Charles38967273k665]

I imported about 70 luts. In Creative, everything is available up to SL Bleach HDR. Everything below that, when I click on them, they all just load SL Bleach HDR. I have the latest premiere pro from creative cloud,

[R Neil Haugen]

First, I don't know, from your post, whether you loaded those in the correct user locations, or added them into the folder with the Adobe provided LUTs, which as is stated above is wrong.

Second, they do seem to have a limitation of the number of LUTs it will recognize. 

[Charles38967273k665]

Thank you for your reply. Which is the correct location? Too many responses. Since my user name is user, I put them into 

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Creative

C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\LUTs\Technical

[Charles38967273k665]

So how do I get rid of the LUTs that I will never use? Where are they located?

[R Neil Haugen]

If you wanna dump them every update patch, they're in the Program/Package folder tree of Premiere ...Lumetri/LUTs ... but again, every update patch they'll be replaced.

How many LUTs do you have, and how do you use them?

[Charles38967273k665]

I have 55 total in creative, including the standard ones.

I have 17 in technical.

I have never used LUT's. I did not find them useful. I just got a bunch of free ones and was going through them when I hit this snage. There are only about 3 that interest me right now. So I am going to delete a bunch of them, try the ones I haven't tried and then delete what is not interesting

[R Neil Haugen]

All cool.

I've been around working for/with/teaching pro colorists for a decade now. One learns that LUTs can be very useful and can also screw up the image pixels. Most colorists have testing files they apply a LUT to, at first use, so they know what and when it will break media.

Most colorists vastly prefer the algorithmic transforms that Resolve has had for a version or so, and Premiere now has for most media, as those cannot 'break' media like LUTs can. Algos are actually complex math with if this/then that not X stuff built in.

LUTs of course are simply a text look up table, maybe 30 points.  Maybe 64. Take this RGB triplicate and make it this RGB triplicate at the set points, and in between the programs apply a fairly straight line from one set to the next.

That said, they can also be either fun or at times, really useful to do a particular 'look', or at times these days, the only way you can find to transform from X camera sensor space to timeline space or whatever.

I've only added about 20 or so to the Creative tab section, of transforms and look types. I use the Creative tab to apply transform LUTs btw due to being able to then use the Basic tab controls to 'trim' the clip to fit what the LUT was built for, in exposure/contrast/sat.

But I use the algos whenever possible so over the last six months I've not been using many LUTs at all. And Resolve has so many built-in transforms now I don't think I've used a LUT in Resolve in months.

[Charles38967273k665]

Thank you for this very informative post. I am, however, ignorant of what you mean by algos. Please educate or point me to more about them

[R Neil Haugen]

"Algos" is just shorthand for algorithms. Those are a specific format of typically long complex mathematical formulations to "solve" specific cases.

Premiere has many of them for the auto-tonemapping it does. The staffers have at times said the camera/format specific algos were supplied by the manufacturer, and at other times, created by working with the manufacturer. So it's maybe some combination of manufacturer supplied ones and ones that Adobe has created with input from the manufacturer.

At any rate, they are higly capable tools for doing color space and dynamic range transforms without losing or harming a single pixel.

LUTs ... can and will break the media, if given the "wrong" media file.

[Charles38967273k665]

Thank you again. Are they already in Premiere pro? Where do I find them? Are there outside sources for them?

[R Neil Haugen]

They are already there ... if you read up in their online documentation about the new color system, they're mentioned.

At least most, if not all, the internal transforms ... applied via auto tonemapping, and the Override-to option, are algorithms now. Some of the Input might still be LUTs, but I could be wrong about that.

Which is why I do suggest to people that unless the job requires a specific LUT applied to the media, the included algos are safer and preferable. For both normalization from from log to linear and for color/dynamic range transforms.

[Charles38967273k665]

You have been great. But I am still a newbie. Are you talking about lumetri color or which color system. I would love to read the online documentation. Got a link?

Thanks again