HTCUT
Guide 7 of 10 · Look
  1. 1Install & first project
  2. 2Set up Claude Code
  3. 3Editing basics
  4. 4Text & motion graphics
  5. 5Sound
  6. 6Edit by transcript
  7. 7Look
  8. 8Shorts
  9. 9Publish
  10. 10CLI quick reference

Learn · Guide 7 of 10

Look

Colour, retouching, cut-outs, picture-in-picture frames and motion. Most of it lives in the inspector when a clip is selected.

A product close-up with the presenter in a circular picture-in-picture frame.
A circle picture-in-picture over a product shot, from a published video.

Colour

  1. Grade

    Inspector ▸ Grade has the sliders. With several clips selected, a slider sets that one setting on all of them.

  2. Add a LUT

    Use the LUT menu in the Grade section to pick a .cube file, then set its amount. Recent LUTs stay in the menu.

  3. Match shots

    Select the shots, then Edit Timeline ▸ Match Colour to Earliest Selected. HTCUT measures both and nudges the grade of the others toward the reference.

  4. Retouch skin

    Inspector ▸ Skin: turn it on, pick a preset (subtle, natural, studio, max) and fine-tune smoothing, texture, tone, eye bags, wrinkles and neck. View mask shows what it touches. Faces are tracked in the background; the preview shows the clip untouched until that’s done, and export waits for it.

$ htcut grade --clip 6cefc281 --lut ~/LUTs/Film.cube --mix 0.6
$ htcut grade match --clip 5af63c3b --to 6cefc281
$ htcut skin --talking-heads --preset natural

Cut-outs and masks

  1. Pick a cut-out method

    In Inspector ▸ Cut-out, each method fails in different ways, so switch until one holds:

    • Subject and Person: Apple Vision, on your Mac
    • Video: Robust Video Matting, steadier on hair; a small download the first time (Install)
    • Points: Segment Anything 2 follows what you click, such as a product in a hand; about a 0.9 GB download
    • Chroma and Luma keys, with an eyedropper for the key colour

    Cut-outs are made in the background, only for the parts of a clip you use.

  2. Keep only one person

    Pick and Exclude let you click people or objects in the viewer to keep or drop them, and HTCUT follows your pick from frame to frame.

  3. Tidy the edges

    Edges: choke (shrink or grow), feather and invert, for every method.

  4. Draw shape masks

    Shapes: rectangles, ellipses, polygons and a brush. Each one adds, subtracts or acts as a garbage matte. Shapes stick to the footage, and a shape with keys follows it over time.

Frames and picture-in-picture

Inspector ▸ Frame turns a clip into an iPhone, iPad or MacBook screen, or a circle or rounded picture-in-picture with a border and shadow. The border uses your brand accent unless you pick a colour, and a fill colour or gradient can sit behind a cut-out.

$ htcut device --clip ca9d82a2 circle --border 0.03 --color "#0071E3" --scale 0.3 --x 700 --y 300

Motion

  • Speed: Inspector ▸ Speed for a constant speed or a ramp (hero, ramp up, ramp down, bullet). Pitch is kept. Smooth slow motion makes in-between frames for slow, constant speeds.
  • Stabilise: Inspector ▸ Stabilise smooths handheld footage. At 1 it’s close to a tripod.
  • Keyframes: Inspector ▸ Keyframes adds keys at the playhead. Diamonds on the clip drag to retime.
  • Punch-ins: Edit Timeline ▸ Auto Punch-Ins on Jump Cuts scales every other jump cut in on the face.
  • Screen recordings: Edit Timeline ▸ Auto Zoom Screen Recording zooms to where things happen, and Edit Timeline ▸ Zoom Here… ⌥⌘Z zooms on the spot you click.