Custom .cube LUT not loading in Premiere Pro: the 65 point problem and every other fix

Updated 2026-09-24 · 5 min read · by Nunik Co.

You browse to your .cube in Lumetri, nothing happens, or the picture does not change, or the dropdown forgets it next time. Premiere is fussier about LUT files than Resolve is, and it does not tell you why. These are the causes in the order they usually turn out to be.

1. It is a 65 point LUT on a build that rejects them

Some older Premiere Pro versions refuse cube files larger than 33 points. Nothing loads and no error appears. If your LUT was exported at 65, rebuild it at 33. ChromaMimic defaults to 33 for exactly this reason, and 33 is indistinguishable from 65 on all but the most extreme grades.

To check the size, open the .cube in a text editor and look for the line LUT_3D_SIZE 65.

2. It is in the wrong Lumetri slot

Lumetri has two LUT slots and they do different jobs.

• Basic Correction, Input LUT. Applied first, before every other adjustment. This is for technical conversions: the camera manufacturer's S-Log3 to Rec.709, V-Log to Rec.709 and so on.
• Creative, Look. Applied after the basic corrections. This is for creative LUTs, including anything from ChromaMimic.

Put a creative LUT in the Input slot on log footage and it applies before the conversion, so it looks wrong. Put the conversion LUT in the Creative slot and your basic corrections happen in log space, which is also wrong. Conversion in Input, creative in Look. The longer version.

3. The file is not really a .cube

• The name must end in .cube. Windows hides extensions by default, so mylook.cube.txt shows as mylook.cube. Turn on file name extensions in Explorer's View menu.
• Open it in a text editor. It must start with a header including LUT_3D_SIZE and then contain only lines of three numbers. Anything else (HTML from a failed download, a zip, an image) will not load.
• Non ASCII characters in the file name or path can trip some builds. Keep it plain.

4. It loaded once and vanished

Browse in Lumetri points at the file where it sits. Move or rename the file, or open the project on another machine, and the reference breaks. To make a LUT permanent, put it in Premiere's own LUT folder and restart:

Create the folders if they do not exist. Both locations need admin rights to write to. Restart Premiere and the LUTs appear in the dropdown by name, on every project.

5. It is applied but you cannot see it

• The Lumetri effect is bypassed (the fx toggle in Effect Controls).
• Intensity in the Creative section is at zero.
• Program monitor is showing a different clip, or you applied it to the wrong one of two stacked clips.
• The footage is log and there is no Input LUT, so the creative LUT lands on a flat image and barely registers. Add the conversion.

6. It loads but looks different from the preview

Premiere's default colour management and a display profile mismatch can shift the picture. Check Sequence Settings for the working colour space (Rec.709 for most delivery) and make sure the Lumetri scopes agree with what you saw when you built the LUT. If ChromaMimic's preview and Premiere disagree, Premiere is applying something else in the chain, usually an automatic log detection or a clip level colour space override. Look in Modify, Interpret Footage, Color Management for the clip.

Building a Premiere friendly LUT

ChromaMimic exports a standard Adobe Cube v1.0 file at 33 points by default, with a TITLE line and no exotic headers, which is the safest possible file for Lumetri. If you export at 65 for a Resolve grade and also need it in Premiere, export both sizes; the free tier's downloads reset monthly and Pro is unlimited.