How to Add Colour Grading in CapCut Step by Step — Complete Guide 2026

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How to Add Colour Grading in CapCut Step by Step — Complete Guide 2026

Hello everyone! I am Zakir from Edit With Zakir. Today I am going to share one of my favourite topics — colour grading in CapCut. When I first started editing videos on my phone, my footage always looked flat and dull. I tried many things but nothing worked. Then I discovered colour grading in CapCut and everything changed. My videos started looking cinematic and professional. Today I am going to teach you exactly what I learned so that your videos can look just as good. Let us get started!

Point---Friends, now I am going to share some applications with you. You can use these apps to manage and adjust the colors of your videos and photos. After color correction, your videos and photos will look awesome, and people will love them! You will definitely get more views and appreciation from people

Colour grading is the process of adjusting and enhancing the colours in your video footage to create a specific mood, style, or visual identity. It is the difference between footage that looks like it was recorded on a phone and footage that looks like it was shot for a professional production.

In 2026, CapCut provides one of the most accessible and most powerful colour grading toolsets available on any mobile platform — completely free, without a watermark, and available on any Android or iOS device. Whether you want a warm, golden lifestyle look, a cool and cinematic teal and orange grade, or a clean and bright educational style — CapCut gives you everything you need to achieve it.

This complete step by step guide will walk you through the entire colour grading process in CapCut — from basic colour correction to advanced creative grading techniques that will transform the look of your videos.

What Is the Difference Between Colour Correction and Colour Grading?

Before we get into the steps, it is important to understand the difference between colour correction and colour grading — because they are two separate processes that happen in a specific order.

Colour correction is the process of making your footage look natural and accurate. Correcting the exposure so the image is neither too bright nor too dark. Fixing the white balance so colours look true to life. Balancing the shadows and highlights so detail is visible throughout the frame. Colour correction makes your footage look like what you actually saw when you filmed it.

Colour grading is the creative process that happens after colour correction. It is where you take your corrected, natural-looking footage and intentionally transform it into a specific visual style — a look that communicates mood, establishes atmosphere, and gives your content a distinctive visual identity.

Always correct before you grade. A beautiful creative grade applied over incorrectly exposed or incorrectly white-balanced footage will never look right. The correction pass is the foundation. The grade is the creative layer built on top.

Step 1 — Import Your Video and Open the Editing Interface

Open CapCut on your Android or iOS device. Tap New Project on the home screen. Select the video clip you want to colour grade from your media library and tap Add. CapCut will import your clip and open the main editing interface.

Your clip will appear as a bar in the timeline at the bottom of the screen. The preview screen at the top shows you exactly how your footage currently looks. This is your starting point — and in most cases, straight from the camera, it will look flat, slightly dull, or incorrectly balanced.

Tap on your clip in the timeline to select it. A white border will appear around the clip, indicating it is selected. The toolbar at the bottom will update to show clip-specific editing options.

Step 2 — Access the Colour Adjustment Tools

With your clip selected, look at the bottom toolbar and scroll to find the Adjust option. It may also appear as a dial or sliders icon depending on your version of CapCut. Tap Adjust to open the colour adjustment panel.

The Adjust panel contains all of CapCut's basic colour correction and colour grading tools — a set of sliders that control different aspects of how your footage looks. Each slider adjusts a specific quality of the image. Understanding what each one does is the foundation of effective colour grading.

Here are the key sliders you will find in the Adjust panel and what each one controls.

Brightness controls the overall lightness or darkness of the entire image. Moving it right makes the image brighter. Moving it left makes it darker.

Contrast controls the difference between the bright and dark areas of the image. Higher contrast makes bright areas brighter and dark areas darker simultaneously, creating a more dramatic, punchy image. Lower contrast makes everything more uniform and flat.

Saturation controls the intensity of all colours in the image. Higher saturation makes colours more vivid and intense. Lower saturation makes colours more muted and grey.

Sharpness controls the perceived clarity and detail of the image. Higher sharpness makes edges more defined and the image appears crisper.

Highlights controls only the brightest areas of the image. Moving it left darkens only the highlights — useful for recovering detail in overexposed areas.

Shadows controls only the darkest areas of the image. Moving it right lifts the shadows — making dark areas slightly brighter and revealing detail in underexposed areas.

Temperature controls the colour warmth of the image. Moving it right makes the image warmer and more orange. Moving it left makes the image cooler and more blue.

Tint controls the green-magenta balance of the image. Moving it right adds a magenta cast. Moving it left adds a green cast.

Vignette darkens the edges of the frame, drawing the viewer's eye toward the centre. A subtle vignette adds a cinematic quality to most footage.

Step 3 — Perform Basic Colour Correction First

Before applying any creative grade, correct the basic exposure and white balance of your footage. This correction pass makes your footage look natural and accurate — the foundation that your creative grade will be built on.

Start with Brightness. Look at your footage in the preview screen. Does it look too dark or too bright? Adjust the Brightness slider until the image looks naturally lit — neither underexposed nor overexposed. For most smartphone footage, a small adjustment of between minus 10 and plus 10 is sufficient.

Next, adjust Contrast. Most smartphone footage comes out slightly flat and low contrast. Adding a small amount of contrast — between plus 10 and plus 20 — makes the image feel more three-dimensional and visually interesting without looking dramatic or unnatural.

Then fix the White Balance. Look at the colours in your footage. Does it look too warm and orange? Move the Temperature slider left toward the cool side. Does it look too cold and blue? Move it right toward the warm side. The goal at this stage is natural, accurate colour — white objects should look white, and skin tones should look healthy and natural.

Finally, adjust Highlights and Shadows. If your brightest areas look washed out or overexposed, move Highlights left to recover detail. If your darkest areas look too deep or underexposed, move Shadows right to lift them and reveal detail.

After these four adjustments, your footage should look natural, balanced, and accurately coloured. This is your corrected baseline — and it is now ready for creative grading.

Step 4 — Apply Your Creative Colour Grade

Now comes the most exciting part — transforming your corrected footage into a specific visual style using creative colour grading. Here are four popular colour grades and exactly how to achieve each one in CapCut.

The Teal and Orange Cinematic Grade

The teal and orange grade is the most popular cinematic colour style in 2026 — used in Hollywood films, high-performing YouTube videos, and viral social media content. It creates a visually striking contrast between cool teal shadows and warm orange skin tones that the human eye finds naturally appealing.

To create the teal and orange grade in CapCut, start with your corrected baseline and make these adjustments. Reduce Highlights by minus 15 to minus 20. Lift Shadows by plus 10 to plus 15. Increase Contrast by plus 15 to plus 20. Move Temperature slightly warm — plus 10 to plus 15. Increase Saturation by plus 10 to plus 15. Add a subtle Vignette of minus 0.3 to minus 0.5.

For the specific teal push in the shadows, CapCut's Colour Wheels feature — if available in your version — allows you to push the shadow tones toward teal by moving the shadow wheel slightly toward the blue-green direction. In versions without Colour Wheels, moving the Temperature slightly cool combined with the warm Highlights creates a similar effect.

The Warm and Golden Lifestyle Grade

The warm golden grade is perfect for lifestyle content, travel videos, food content, and any video where a welcoming, comfortable, positive mood is the goal.

Start with your corrected baseline and apply these adjustments. Increase Temperature by plus 20 to plus 30. Increase Brightness slightly — plus 5 to plus 10. Increase Saturation by plus 15 to plus 20. Reduce Highlights slightly — minus 10. Increase Contrast by plus 10.

The result is footage that looks warm, bright, golden, and inviting — the signature look of lifestyle and travel content that consistently performs well on Instagram and YouTube.

The Cool and Moody Grade

The cool moody grade suits dramatic content, tech reviews, educational videos, and any content where a serious, focused, intellectual mood is appropriate.

Start with your corrected baseline and apply these adjustments. Move Temperature left — minus 15 to minus 20. Increase Contrast by plus 20 to plus 25. Reduce Saturation slightly — minus 10. Reduce Brightness slightly — minus 5 to minus 10. Add a stronger Vignette — minus 0.5 to minus 0.8.

The result is footage that looks cool, dark, focused, and serious — communicating competence and authority.

The Clean and Bright Grade

The clean bright grade suits educational content, tutorials, talking-head videos, and any content where clarity, accessibility, and a friendly, approachable mood are the priority.

Start with your corrected baseline and apply these adjustments. Increase Brightness by plus 10 to plus 15. Increase Contrast by plus 10. Increase Saturation by plus 10 to plus 15. Move Temperature slightly warm — plus 5 to plus 10. Reduce Highlights slightly — minus 5 to minus 10.

The result is footage that looks bright, clean, clear, and welcoming — perfect for educational content that needs to feel accessible and easy to watch.

Step 5 — Use CapCut Filters for Instant Grades

In addition to the manual Adjust tools, CapCut provides a large library of pre-built colour filters that can be applied with a single tap — instantly transforming the look of your footage.

To access filters, tap Filters in the bottom toolbar while your clip is selected. Browse the filter categories — Film, Portrait, Food, Nature, and many more. Tap any filter to preview it on your footage instantly. Use the intensity slider at the bottom to control how strongly the filter affects the image.

For a cinematic look, the Film category filters are particularly effective — they simulate the colour characteristics of classic film stocks and add a natural, organic quality to digital smartphone footage.

The most professional approach is to use a filter as the foundation of your grade and then use the Adjust tools to fine-tune and personalise the result. This combination of a pre-built filter with manual adjustments produces more nuanced and unique results than either approach alone.

Step 6 — Apply Your Grade to All Clips

After grading one clip to your satisfaction, the next step is to apply the same grade consistently to all other clips in your project. Consistent colour grading across all clips is one of the most important qualities of professional-looking video — and CapCut makes it fast and easy.

Tap on the clip that you have graded. Look for the Copy Style option in the toolbar — it may appear as a paintbrush or copy icon. Tap Copy Style. Then select all the other clips in your timeline by tapping each one while holding the multi-select option. Tap Paste Style. CapCut applies the same colour grade settings to all selected clips simultaneously.

Review each clip after applying the grade to check that it looks correct. Clips filmed under significantly different lighting conditions may need individual adjustment even after applying the copied grade. Tap each clip individually and make minor tweaks where necessary to ensure the overall look is consistent.

Step 7 — Use the Curves Tool for Advanced Grading

For editors who want more precise control over their colour grade, CapCut's Curves tool provides a more sophisticated grading interface similar to what professional editors use in DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro.

To access the Curves tool in CapCut, tap on your clip, tap Adjust, and scroll to find the Curves option. The Curves panel shows a graph where the horizontal axis represents the input — the original brightness values of the footage — and the vertical axis represents the output — how bright those values will appear after adjustment.

To create a basic contrast curve, click to add a point in the lower left section of the curve — the shadows — and drag it slightly downward to deepen the shadows. Then add another point in the upper right section — the highlights — and drag it slightly upward to brighten the highlights. This creates the S-curve shape that adds contrast and depth to the image.

CapCut also provides separate RGB channels in the Curves tool — Red, Green, and Blue individual curves that allow you to adjust the colour of specific tonal ranges. Pushing the blue curve down in the shadows while lifting it in the highlights, for example, creates a warm shadow and cool highlight combination — one of many creative colour effects achievable through individual channel curve adjustments.

Step 8 — Export Your Colour Graded Video

When your colour grade is complete and you are satisfied with how every clip looks, it is time to export your finished video.

Tap the Export button in the top right corner of the CapCut interface. Set the Resolution to 1080p for most platforms — 4K if your footage supports it and you are publishing to YouTube. Set the Frame Rate to match your project. Tap Export.

CapCut will render your video and save it to your phone's gallery — completely watermark-free. The colour grade you created will be fully preserved in the exported video.

Before publishing, watch the exported video in full on your phone screen. Check that the colour grade looks correct throughout — that there are no clips that look significantly different from the others, that the overall look matches your creative intention, and that the grade enhances rather than distracts from the content.

Tips for Better Colour Grading in CapCut

Film in the best light available. Colour grading can enhance good footage dramatically — but it cannot fix fundamentally poorly lit footage. Natural window light or a basic ring light produces footage that grades significantly better than footage shot in poor artificial lighting.

Use reference images. Find colour grades that you admire in other videos or films and save screenshots as references. Keep them open while grading and compare your work to the reference regularly.

Grade on a good screen. The accuracy of your colour grading decisions is only as good as the screen you are viewing on. A screen with accurate colour reproduction and reasonable brightness will produce more reliable colour grading results than a cheap screen with inaccurate colour.

Less is more. The most common colour grading mistake is going too far. Subtle, restrained colour grades almost always look more professional than dramatic, over-processed ones. Make small adjustments and check the result before pushing further.

Always compare to the original. In CapCut, you can compare your graded footage to the original ungraded version by toggling the adjustments on and off. Use this comparison regularly while grading to ensure your adjustments are actually improving the image rather than simply making it look different.

Final Thoughts

Colour grading in CapCut is one of the most rewarding skills a mobile video editor can develop — and the step by step process in this guide gives you everything you need to start producing professional-looking colour grades immediately. Correct your exposure and white balance first. Choose your creative grade style. Use the Adjust tools and Filters together. Apply your grade consistently across all clips. Use the Curves tool for advanced precision. Export at the highest quality setting.

Apply these techniques to your next video and the improvement in visual quality will be immediately visible — to you and to every viewer who watches your content.

Point----I hope you will like my suggestions! You will learn so many things like this—all you have to do is follow my page and leave a nice comment. It will truly have a positive impact on me

Keep editing, keep improving, and keep creating.

— Zakir Edit With Zakir | edit-with-zakir.blogspot.com

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