powergrade vs lut - whats actually the difference in davinci?
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Most creators find LUTs first. They're everywhere. Free packs on YouTube, paid bundles on Gumroad, tutorials showing how to stack three of them at once. Drop one on your footage, drag the opacity down, done. We get it. We used them too.
But at some point you hit a wall. The LUT that looked incredible on the demo footage looks completely wrong on yours. You try another one. Then another. You're chasing something you can't quite catch, and you don't know why. That's usually when the PowerGrade question comes up.
what a LUT actually is
LUT stands for Look Up Table. It's a file that maps input color values to output color values - give it a color, it tells Resolve what to turn it into. Drop it on your footage, done. One step.
That's also the problem.
A LUT is a fixed transformation. It was built on specific footage, shot at a specific exposure, in specific light. When your footage looks different (and it almost always does), the LUT doesn't adjust. It just runs the same math regardless of what you've given it.
Sometimes the result is great. Sometimes it's completely off. And there's nothing to open, nothing to tweak. You got the output. That's it.
what a PowerGrade actually is
A PowerGrade is a saved node tree in DaVinci Resolve. When someone shares one, they're sharing the full structure of how they grade. Every node, every adjustment, every decision in the chain. You can open it. You can see what each piece is doing. You can change it.
It's not just the look, it's the logic behind the look.
Because it runs inside Resolve's node system, a PowerGrade can do things a LUT can't touch: color space transforms, qualifiers, selective corrections, and different handling for log or rec709 depending on your footage. It responds to what you give it rather than applying a blanket transformation.
The node tree is right there. Open, readable, editable.
the real difference
A LUT gives you a destination. A PowerGrade gives you a path.
When you rely on LUTs long-term, you can get lucky with a nice image — but nothing sticks. You can't diagnose why something looks off. You can't fix the workflow because there is no workflow, just a transformation sitting on top of your footage that you have no control over.
A PowerGrade shows you the decisions. Where the color space is handled. Where the exposure is shaped. Where the film emulation comes in. You can see it, which means you can learn from it — not just copy it.
Over time, that's the gap between someone who applies grades and someone who actually understands color.
are LUTs ever worth using?
Yes, in the right context.
Technical LUTs from camera manufacturers are doing real work. A Sony S-Cinetone transform, a RED IPP2, a log-to-display conversion provided by the manufacturer - those are calibrated tools built for specific pipelines. They absolutely belong in a serious workflow.
Creative "cinematic look" LUT packs are different. They can work. They also break on footage that doesn't match what they were tested on, and when they do, you have nothing to work with.
why we built coolgrades as a PowerGrade
We grade footage on expeditions. Jungles, deserts, ice, mountain passes. Bad light, fast decisions, no retakes, no lighting crew. A LUT that was tested on a controlled studio shoot doesn't survive that kind of footage.
We needed something that would.
coolgrades is a DaVinci Resolve workflow — two fully editable PowerGrades plus an 18-chapter masterclass explaining every decision behind them. Not just what each node does. Why it's there, what it's protecting, and what happens when you move it.
The grades give you a solid starting point you can use immediately. The class is where the real value is. After watching it, you'll understand your image better, with or without our PowerGrades.
That was the whole point of building it.
