Professional LUT Management & Preview Engine

Overview & Core Purpose

LUT Explorer is a powerful macOS-native application designed for photographers, colorists, and video editors to manage, preview, and apply 3D LUTs (.cube files) with unprecedented speed and precision.

The application solves the challenge of "LUT fatigue"—the difficulty of identifying the perfect color grade among hundreds of similar files. By providing a high-performance grid of real-time previews, LUT Explorer allows you to see exactly how any LUT affects your specific footage before committing to a final render.

🎞️ Advanced Media Support

• Static Images: Full support for professional formats including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and HEIF (HEIC).
• Live Video Player: Integrated AVKit playback for MP4, MOV, and MKV files. You can play, scrub, and evaluate LUTs while the video is in motion.
• "Apply to This Frame": A flagship feature for video editors. Capture any specific frame from a playing video to use as a static high-resolution reference for precise color evaluation across the entire LUT library.

📊 Professional Technical Metadata & Analysis

• Live Overlays: A compact, glassmorphic overlay provides technical specs for the loaded source: Resolution (e.g., 3840x2160), File Size, and Video Specs (Duration & FPS).
• Dynamic Badges: Immediate visual identification of the source type (Photo vs. Video).
• Advanced Analysis: Accurate vectorscope monitoring to measure color intensities and lattice nodes.

🎨 Pre-Processing & Settings

Before applying a LUT, you can adjust the source media for proper normalization:

• Histogram Equalization: Automatically balances the exposure.
• Brightness & Contrast: Manual sliders to prepare LOG or flat footage for the LUT.
• Real-Time Engine: All processing happens asynchronously, ensuring a smooth, lag-free UI.

New Tool: Blend & Save

Merge your color palettes creatively with our custom interpolation engine:

• Linear A/B Mixing: Select two LUTs and use the linear blending slider to interpolate the values.
• Symmetrical Cross-Fade: The preview updates instantly, delivering the correct perceived luminance at every blend proportion.
• Custom Cube Export: Directly export the newly generated LUT as a `.cube` file for use in external software like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve.

🚀 High-Performance Export & Management

• Duplicate Detection: Recursively scans folders and uses MD5 hashing to detect identical files (even with different names) to avoid clutter.
• Heart Favorites: Mark your favorite LUTs to keep them pinned at the top of the grid.
• Image Export: Save color-graded frames in JPEG, PNG, or HEIF.
• Video Export (FFmpeg Powered): Export full videos in H.264 or ProRes 422, in MP4 or MOV containers, with bitrate control up to 100 Mbps.

UI/UX Design Philosophy

• Glassmorphism: Leverages macOS Big Sur+ visual styles with vibrant, semi-transparent elements (`umUltraThinBackground`).
• Non-Blocking Architecture: FFmpeg processing, disk scanning, and frame extraction run on background queues, keeping the main interface fast and responsive.
• Drag & Drop Workflow: Drag LUTs, Folders, or Media files directly onto the app to load them instantly, while maintaining 100% source brightness without visual dimming penalties.