Why does my iPhone Log footage look gray and washed out? (And how to fix it in about a minute)
You've done the thing everyone told you to do. You went into the camera settings, turned on Log, felt like a proper filmmaker for about four seconds, shot the whole day, and now you're looking at footage that looks like it was filmed through a net curtain.
Flat. Gray. Milky. Colors that aren't really colors.
I remember the first time I saw it. I assumed I'd broken something.
You haven't. This is exactly what Log is supposed to look like, and the fix is one file and one click. But there's a second mistake almost everyone makes straight after the fix, so read to the end before you go and grade anything.
Quick answer
Apple Log records a flat image on purpose so it can hold more detail in the highlights and shadows. It's not meant to be watched, it's meant to be converted. You fix it by applying a conversion LUT (Apple Log to Rec 709) as the first thing on the clip. Then you grade on top of that.
Don't slap a creative LUT straight onto Log footage. That's the mistake, and I'll show you why it looks worse than the gray you started with.
Why Log looks gray in the first place
Here's the short version without the physics lecture.
When you shoot normal video, the phone decides for you what should be bright, what should be dark, and how punchy the colors should be. It bakes all of that in. Looks great straight away, but if the sky's blown out, it's gone forever.
Log does the opposite. It squashes the whole brightness range of the scene into a narrow, low-contrast image so nothing gets thrown away. Bright sky? Kept. Shadow under the bridge? Kept. The cost is that the file looks like nothing until you stretch it back out.
Think of it as a negative. Nobody hangs a negative on the wall. You develop it first.
So the gray isn't a fault. It's the raw material.
"This is what a correctly exposed Log clip looks like. Yes, really."
First, check it's actually Log (and not the other gray problem)
This trips up a lot of people, so it's worth thirty seconds.
There are two completely different reasons iPhone footage comes into an edit looking washed out, and they need different fixes:
1. You shot in Apple Log. Available on the Pro models from the iPhone 15 Pro onwards. You'd have switched it on deliberately in the Camera settings or in an app like Blackmagic Camera. If the footage looked gray on the phone while you were filming, it's Log. Carry on reading.
2. You shot in HDR (Dolby Vision / HLG), which is the iPhone's default. This footage looks brilliant on the phone and then turns washed out or weirdly bright when you drop it into Premiere, Final Cut or Resolve. That's not a Log problem. That's a color space mismatch, and the fix is telling your editor the clip is HLG (or turning HDR off in the phone settings before your next shoot). If that's you, a LUT won't help, and I'll cover that one separately.
Quick test: if it looked flat on the screen, it's Log. If it only went flat in the edit, it's HDR.
The fix: a conversion LUT, first, always
A conversion LUT (sometimes called a technical LUT or a Rec 709 LUT) does one job. It takes the flat Log image and maps it back to a normal-looking image, the way the scene actually looked. No style, no mood, no "cinematic". Just correct.
Apple ships one, and we make one too. We give ours away free because honestly, it's the one file every iPhone shooter needs and it felt wrong to charge for it.
Free Aprture Conversion LUT Pack. Includes Apple Log, DJI D-Log M, GoPro Protune and more.
Here's the workflow, whichever editor you use:
- Drop the conversion LUT on the clip first. In Resolve that's a node at the start of the chain. In Premiere it's the Input LUT in Lumetri. In Final Cut it's the Camera LUT setting in the Inspector. In CapCut, the LUT slot in Adjust.
- Check the exposure. Once it's converted you'll see whether you actually exposed well on the day. Nudge exposure or contrast if you need to. This is the moment to fix it, not later.
- Now add your look. Creative LUT, grain, whatever you're going for. On top, never underneath.
That's it. Sixty seconds, most of which is finding the file.
Where the conversion LUT goes in each editor
Same idea everywhere, but the button's in a different place. Here's the quick version for the four editors most iPhone shooters are using.
DaVinci Resolve
- Open the Color page and select your Log clip.
- Right-click the first node and go to LUTs, then pick the Apple Log to Rec 709 file. If you can't see it, drop the .cube file into your LUT folder first (Project Settings → Color Management → Open LUT Folder) and hit Update Lists.
- Add a new node after it for your creative LUT. Never on the same node.
Tip: if you've got a whole timeline of Log clips, apply the conversion on a shared node or set it as the Input Color Space under Project Settings so you're not doing it forty times.
Premiere Pro
- Select the clip and open the Lumetri Color panel.
- Under Basic Correction, use the Input LUT dropdown and browse to the conversion file.
- Put your creative LUT in the Creative section, not in Input LUT. That's what the two slots are for.
Also worth doing: right-click the clip in the project panel → Modify → Interpret Footage, and check the color space reads Rec 709. If it says HLG, you've got the HDR problem from earlier, not a Log one.
Final Cut Pro
- Select the clip and open the Inspector (Info tab).
- Find Camera LUT or choose Add Custom LUT in the effects menu, then point it at the conversion file. Once it's in, it'll appear in that dropdown for every future clip.
- Add your creative LUT as a Custom LUT effect from the Effects browser. That sits on top.
CapCut (desktop)
- Select the clip and go to Adjust in the top-right panel.
- Open the LUT tab and click Import to bring in the .cube file.
- Set intensity to 100% for the conversion LUT (it's a correction, not a look), then import your creative LUT as a second layer and dial that one to taste.
If you're editing on the phone itself, the easiest route is Blackmagic Camera or LumaFusion, both of which let you load a .cube file directly. The native Photos app won't do it.
The mistake everyone makes: creative LUT straight on Log
This is the bit I actually wanted to write the post about.
Someone buys a nice cinematic LUT pack, drops it straight onto their Log clip, and it looks terrible. Crushed blacks, orange skin, greens gone radioactive. They assume the LUT is rubbish and go and leave a one-star review.
The LUT is fine. It was built to sit on top of a normal (Rec 709) image. Feed it a flat Log image and it's trying to add contrast and color to something that's already had the contrast and color taken out. Two wrongs, and the result looks nothing like the preview.
Every creative LUT we sell is built for Rec 709. So is nearly every LUT on the market, unless it specifically says "Apple Log" on the tin. The order is always:
Log clip → conversion LUT → creative LUT → grain/overlays
Get that order right and a $20 LUT pack suddenly looks like the demo video. Get it wrong and nothing you buy will ever look right.
Should you even be shooting Log on an iPhone?
Honest answer: not always.
Log is worth it when the light is difficult. Bright sky and dark subject, sunsets, interiors with windows, anything where the phone's standard mode would have to give up on either the highlights or the shadows. That's where you'll genuinely see the difference.
For a well-lit talking head or a quick clip for a story, it's an extra step for very little gain, and the files are enormous.
My rule: Log for anything I care about grading. Standard for everything else. And if you're going to shoot Log, expose slightly brighter than looks right. Log footage that's underexposed goes noisy fast once you convert it, and no LUT saves that.
What to do next
If you've got a card full of gray iPhone footage right now:
- Grab the free Conversion LUT Pack and drop the Apple Log to Rec 709 file on your clips
- If you want it to look like film rather than just look correct, the iPhone Film LUT pack was built specifically for iPhone footage after conversion
- And if you're on Resolve and want the whole chain done for you, that's what our Powergrades are for (coming soon)
Still gray after the conversion LUT? Nine times out of ten it's the HDR/HLG problem from the section above, not Log. Check the clip's color space in your editor before you touch anything else.
You can also check out our iPhone Bundle for the full iPhone kit.
Quick questions people ask us about this
Does my iPhone shoot Log? Apple Log is on the Pro models from the iPhone 15 Pro onwards. If you've got a standard 15, 16 or older, the option isn't there. You can still get a flatter, more gradeable image with a third-party camera app, but it won't be true Apple Log and you shouldn't use an Apple Log LUT on it.
Do I have to shoot ProRes to use Log? On the 15 Pro, yes, Log and ProRes come as a pair, which is why the files are so big. Newer Pro models have loosened this. Either way, budget for storage. A minute of ProRes Log at 4K is roughly the size of a feature film's worth of standard video.
Why is my footage noisy after I apply the conversion LUT? Underexposure. Log holds a lot of detail in the shadows but it doesn't hold it cleanly, and the conversion LUT stretches the dark areas back out along with the noise that's living in them. Next time, expose a touch brighter than looks right in the viewfinder. For the footage you already have, a light denoise before the LUT helps more than anything you do after it.
Can I just use Apple's own LUT? Yes, and it's a perfectly good conversion. The difference with ours is that it's tuned so that a creative LUT sits on top of it properly, and it comes in a pack alongside DJI, GoPro and Sony conversions so you're not hunting for separate files every time you switch camera.
Can I skip the conversion and just grade by hand? You can, and colorists do. But you'll spend 30 minutes doing what the LUT does in one click, and you'll do it slightly differently on every clip. Convert first, then grade by hand on top if you want the control.
My footage looks fine on the phone but gray in Premiere. Is that Log? No. That's HDR (HLG), the iPhone's default video mode, being misread by your editor. Fix the color space interpretation on the clip, or switch HDR off in Settings → Camera → Record Video before your next shoot. A LUT won't fix that one.
