5 Best Video Color Grading Software in 2025

Discover the top 5 video color grading software for 2025. Learn about the essential features of each tool, and find the perfect fit for your video editing needs. Whether you're looking for free solutions or professional-grade software, this guide has you covered.

Giving your video a professional look is essential and color grading software can help you do just that. In this article, we’ll cover the 5 best color grading software options available right now – covering both free and paid options so you can find the perfect one for your needs.

What is Color Grading?

Color grading fine-tunes video visuals by adjusting color, contrast, brightness, and saturation to set a specific mood or style, often enhancing a film's narrative or a photo's aesthetics. Key grading elements include:

  • Hue: Altering the basic color to shift the image's temperature.
  • Saturation: Enhancing or muting colors for vibrancy or subtlety.
  • Brightness: Controlling the image's lightness or darkness.
  • Contrast: Manipulating the difference between light and dark areas for drama or flatness.
  • Gamma: Influencing midtones without affecting shadows and highlights.
  • Color Balance: Ensuring color consistency and correcting casts.
  • White Balance: Adjusting for accurate whites under various lighting, impacting color temperature.

With the right color grading tool, your videos can achieve clarity and vibrancy. Let's explore top color grading software that offers both automated simplicity and comprehensive manual control, guiding you to find the best free option for your projects.

5 Best Color Grading Software

ProgramOSLevelBest for
UniFab HDR Upconverter AIWin, MacBeginners and professionalsQuick grading or AI color enhancing
DaVinci ResolveWin, Mac, LinuxProfessionalsProfessional editing and color grading
Final Cut ProMacProfessionalsStepping up from iMovie
Adobe Premiere ProWinProfessionalsColor grading while editing video with advanced features
LightWorksWin, Mac, LinuxProfessionalsAdvanced and basic video editing

UniFab HDR Upconverter AI

UniFab is your one-stop solution for all video enhancement needs, making high-quality video editing accessible to everyone. This user-friendly tool is perfect for both novices and experts in color grading, offering a 30-day free trial that allows you to color grade up to 5 videos with full functionality.

Besides the basic color correction, UniFab also offers a powerful tool to automatically enhance your video to HDR. It's the first AI-powered solution for SDR to HDR conversion, allowing you to adjust colors and brightness and enhance detail, contrast, and depth, making videos more true-to-life.

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Top Benefits:

  • Edit your videos by cropping, trimming, or adding effects or changing colors.
  • Enlarge video resolution up to 4K and upscale it to HDR.
  • Supports both DCI-P3 and Rec.2020 color spaces for exceptional color accuracy.
  • Accept all formats of videos like 3gp, avi, flv, m2ts, mp4, mov, mkv, ogm, ts, etc.
  • Supports batch video editing.

How to use UniFab

Step 1

Install and launch the UniFab on your device first. Choose the "Video Converter" module.

UniFab HDR Upconverter AI

  • Dynamically adjusts colors and brightness to enhance detail, contrast, and depth.
  • 30-day free trial with full feature access – download and start now!
Free Download

Step 2

Add the video you want to colorize into UniFab and select 'Effect'.

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Step 3

You can adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and add some filters based on your needs. After customization, click 'OK' to start the procedure.

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DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve employs a node-based system for color grading, enabling you to work with layers, which enhances organization and allows for easy adjustments or disabling of specific grading layers. 

A standout feature is its face-tracking capability, which isolates facial features or the eyes for targeted color adjustments. Additionally, it offers auto-balancing effects and a vast collection of FX plugins to enrich your color-grading experience.

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Price: 

DaVinci Resolve: free

DaVinci Resolve Studio: $295

Key Features

  • Top-notch motion tracking and auto-balancing effects 
  • Advanced color-grading effects
  • Offers a vast collection of FX plugins to enrich your color-grading experience

Pros

  • Advanced color-grading effects

  • Beginners can achieve good effect on just the free version

  • A vast collection of FX plugins

Cons

  • A higher learning curve

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editing software, that features an advanced color grading system within its Lumetri Color panel. This tool set rivals Photoshop for video, offering extensive color control with customizable color wheels, curves, and a variety of film and HDR presets. Keyframing allows for precise adjustments to white balance, exposure, contrast, and more. Additional features include Saturation, Vibrance, Faded Film, and Sharpen controls, as well as a Color Match tool with face detection.  Adobe claims the tool analyzes an entire clip using its patented Sensei AI technology to improve exposure, white balance, and contrast. 

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Supported OS: Win

Key Features

  • Offers extensive stock library
  • Auto reframe for different aspect ratios
  • Integrate seamlessly with all Adobe platforms
  • Video editing and color grading on one software

Pros

  • High-quality color correction tools such as curves and color wheel options

  • Many organization and collaboration tools

  • Responsive speed and fast rendering

  • Some techniques require additional applications, such as After Effects or Media Encoder

Cons

  • Intimidating interface for nonprofessionals

  • Sensei AI only works on a per-clip basis

  • Occasionally pumping up saturation too much

  • The tracking abilities is not very accurate

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro offers immediate color correction tools to adjust hues and saturation. A standout feature is the automatic color matching button, which synchronizes the colors of one clip with another for seamless corrections. Additionally, it supports editing in both standard and HLG color spaces.

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Price: $299.99

Supported OS: MacOS

Key Features

  • It has several color points and wheels for customization
  • Many one-click buttons to automatically adjust the color
  • The rendering speed is quicker than most other software

  • Works well for color grading and correction and overall video editing.

  • Fast rendering speed

  • The color grading options were a little limited.

  • Only for Mac

  • Not suitable for complex projects that require lots of layers and timelines.

LightWorks

Though not widely popular despite being free, LightWorks has been a staple in the industry for years. It includes color wheels, curves, basic saturation and hue controls, and a tool for selective corrections. While its interface may not be the most user-friendly for color grading, it effectively accomplishes the task.

lightworks

Pricing: Free

Pro: $23.99/month

Supported OS: Mac, Windows

Key Features:

  • Intermediate color correction tools 
  • advanced editing feature

Pros

  • Expert-level color enhancement and grading services, featuring personalized LUTs

  • Easy-to-use social media templates

Cons

  • Complex Interface

  • The Free version only supports up to 720p exports and the most basic coloring features

  • Not all file formats are supported

Conclusion

A plethora of video color grading tools exists, yet many require proficiency in color grading techniques. For those seeking effortless color adjustments without delving into the learning curve of color grading, an AI-powered video enhancer like UniFab is the go-to solution. Leveraging AI, neural networks, and super-resolution tech, this tool offers a free and comprehensive approach to video enhancement, covering contrast, color, saturation, and detail. If you are a beginner in color grading, UniFab is your first choice. 

FAQs

How important are color features like saturation, brightness, and hue in color grading software?

Color adjustment tools including saturation, brightness, and hue are essential for giving your video a polished appearance. Free color grading software that provides sophisticated control over these elements, along with the ability to manipulate saturation and color curves, enables more intricate and refined management of video outcomes.

Are there any free trials for color grading software that cost money?

Yes, numerous color grading software provides free trials, allowing users to test advanced features before making a purchase decision. This includes software like UniFab, giving users a 30-day free trial with full feature access to assess whether the investment suits their particular requirements.

I love crafting stories through cinematography and exploring the latest tools to enhance video quality. In my spare time, I capture nature's beauty or experiment with new editing tricks.