Use Cases
Nobe LutBake turns DaVinci Resolve into a LUT authoring tool. Your color corrections — curves, wheels, lift/gamma/gain, qualifiers, color space transforms, color-based OFX plugins — get baked into a portable .cube file with a single keystroke.
Here are the most common ways professionals use it.
Live Production & LiveGrade
Use DaVinci Resolve as a software LUT box in your live color pipeline.
Grade live footage using Resolve's color tools and node graphs, then capture the result as a high-quality 3D LUT. Load that LUT into LiveGrade, Teradek COLR, Flanders BoxIO, TVLogic IS-Mini, or any LUT-based device in your live production chain.
Resolve stays in the loop for its superior grading tools without being the primary switching or playout tool — you're injecting Resolve into the middle of the live pipeline purely for its color capabilities, then moving the result out as a LUT.
Typical workflow:
Feed live signal into Resolve (via SDI capture or similar)
Grade using Resolve's color page — curves, wheels, OFX plugins, PowerGrades
Press your capture hotkey
Load the
.cubefile into LiveGrade, your LUT box, or monitoring deviceAdjust and recapture as needed — each iteration takes seconds
This workflow is ideal for professionals who already use LiveGrade for live production but prefer Resolve's color tools for the actual grading work.
On-Set LUT Creation
Design looks in Resolve and export them as camera LUTs for on-set monitoring.
Instead of manually baking LUTs through Resolve's export pipeline, iterate directly in the color page and capture the result with a keypress. The updated LUT is immediately ready for your video village, director's monitor, or camera preview output.
Example scenarios:
DIT creating show LUTs during pre-production
Colorist building camera-specific LUTs for on-set monitoring
DP designing a look and exporting it for the camera team
Creating dailies LUTs that match the intended creative direction
Performance Optimization
Replace heavy color correction chains with a single baked LUT for the same look at a fraction of the render cost.
When stacking multiple color corrections or color-based plugins creates playback or rendering issues, bake the chain into a 3D LUT. The visual result is identical (within LUT resolution), but GPU load drops significantly because a single LUT lookup replaces multiple processing passes.
Only color-to-color transforms can be represented in a 3D LUT. Spatial effects (blur, sharpening, keyers), temporal effects (denoise, motion blur), and texture effects (grain, lens flares) cannot be captured in a LUT — disable them or place them on nodes outside the LutBake capture range before capturing. The app will warn you if it detects suspicious tools in the capture range or spatial corruption in the extracted LUT.
When to use this:
Timeline playback drops below real-time due to plugin load
Multiple instances of the same plugin chain across clips
Final delivery where the creative look is locked and render speed matters
Archiving a grade as a self-contained LUT instead of relying on plugin availability
Look Sharing & Archival
Capture any grade as a portable .cube file for use anywhere a 3D LUT is accepted.
The .cube format is an industry standard supported by virtually every color-aware application — other NLEs, compositing software, LUT boxes, camera firmware, and monitoring tools.
Use this for:
Sharing looks across editing systems (Premiere, Final Cut, Baselight, etc.)
Delivering LUTs to clients alongside final deliverables
Building a personal LUT library from your Resolve grades
Creating LUT packs for distribution or sale
Archiving creative looks independent of project files or plugin versions
Cross-NLE Workflows
If your post-production pipeline spans multiple applications, Nobe LutBake bridges the gap.
Grade in Resolve where you have the most powerful tools, then export the result as a LUT for the conform or online editor working in a different NLE. This avoids round-tripping entire projects and ensures the colorist's intent translates accurately.
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