A 3D LUT is a simple but very powerful way to apply a color grade to footage. 3D LUT files are quite small, (often around 1MB) and can be produced with almost any color grading software, and can be saved on to USB flash drive for use on the monitor or at any point in post-production.

3D LUTs are particularly powerful when used with Portkeys monitors – many can be applied simultaneously on several pages so visualizing color variants onset is made as easy as swiping from page to page. We have some sample LUTS that you can download.

3D LUT Settings

  1. Access 3D LUT settings menu by swiping left on any page, then tap the 3D LUT icon, you can it is highlighted in the tool list.

2. Toggles the 3D LUT Off/On. You can select a LUT that is Stored from USB or import LUT from USB. Select the tool and activate or deactivate it as desired. Yellow tools are active, they are Grey when inactive.

Use 3D LUT with Portkeys Monitor

USB Looks

Select this option and it will open a browser for your USB flash drive. There should be some default Internal LUTS that we have provided as a base, but we always recommend that you use one that is made for your production by either your DIT or Editor to give the closest results to Final.  

LUT import instructions

In this section, we’ll place a downloaded look on an SD card and apply it to a page.

  1. USB format.
    Support for FAT32 and NTFS.
  2. The number of imported files is limited.
    Up to 20 user files can be imported.
  3. Document requirements.
    LUT file format suffix is ​​.cube (case insensitive).
    A single file must not exceed 7.9M.
    Supports files with LUT_3D_SIZE of 16, 17, 32, 33, 64, 65.
    Meet the above requirements as a valid document.
    The LUT file name is required to be in English or numeric to avoid unrecognized, resulting in incorrect file names.
  4. Import steps and instructions:

Step 1: Make sure the USB flash drive is inserted correctly.

Step 2: Enter the [Color] item in the menu main menu and select the [Import LUT ] item, and then execute the item.

Step 3: The system will first recognize the USB flash drive.

(1) No USB recognized
Will prompt “access failed”, you can try again at this time, if not, you can restart the device to try once.

(2) Identify the USB flash drive.
The system will erase the user files that already exist in the device and prompt “initialize”.

video tutorial: how to use 3D LUT with Portkeys monitor