Luma AI Video to Video: Modify, Restyle and Reframe Guide

Luma AI's video to video runs on Ray3.2. You give it one clip of up to 20 seconds plus a prompt, keyframes or both, and it returns a restyled clip of exactly the same length, at 360p draft up to 1080p. It costs 36 to 144 credits per second of source in SDR, so length and resolution set the bill ^[1]. Reframe, a separate tool, changes the aspect ratio for 10 to 120 credits per second. Our verdict is simple. It is the right tool for restyling, relighting or re-staging footage you already shot. It is the wrong tool when a clip must change length.

What Ray3.2 takes in and hands back

Ray3.2 video to video, which Luma's pages also call Modify Video V2, starts from a source clip and returns a reimagined version of the same shot. The output always matches the source duration, up to 20 seconds, and there is no duration parameter: a 7.3-second source returns 7.3 seconds ^[2]. A job needs the source plus at least one of a prompt or keyframes. A bare clip errors out. Resolution choices are 360p draft, 540p, 720p and 1080p, with optional HDR and 16-bit EXR export for finishing in Nuke, Resolve, Flame or Baselight.

You can reach it three ways in the Luma app. Right-click a video on the board, choose Modify Video, then Ray3.2; Luma recommends this route because it opens the full settings window. You can also ask the agent in chat, or start from Generate Video in the toolbar for a keyframe-driven video. For best results, keep footage in the six preset ratios: 9:16, 3:4, 1:1, 4:3, 16:9 and 21:9. Luma's earlier Modify guidance says other ratios get cropped and may degrade, so conform odd sizes first. Our Ray3.2 guide covers the model beyond editing.

Restyling a clip, step by step

The workflow below follows Luma's video-to-video guide and its restyle pages. Each step changes either what the model sees or how tightly it holds the original, and the order matters because every render costs credits. Treat the first passes as cheap drafts. Commit to 1080p, HDR or EXR only once a take is right, since those settings multiply the per-second rate rather than adding a flat fee. Luma's restyle pages say the output is newly generated frames, not a filter, which is why drafts are worth the effort.

1. Trim the source to the shot you need. Cost scales with duration, so every extra second is billed.
2. Open Modify Video on the clip and pick Ray3.2.
3. Write the end state, not instructions: describe the finished frame (a rain-soaked neon street at night, a comic-book panel) and avoid commands, time words and negation. Enhance is on by default and rewrites your prompt with video-to-video guidance; switch it off when exact wording matters.
4. Choose a look: the cartoon presets Classic 2D, Comic Book, Children's Book and Pop Art, an uploaded reference image, or a described style such as noir, claymation, watercolor or vintage.
5. Set Motion, Structure and Character locks (next section).
6. Render a 360p draft, review it, adjust.
7. Render the final at 720p or 1080p, adding HDR, and EXR if a colorist needs frames.

Keyframes give finer control than prompts. Ray3.2 takes up to 16 per clip. You can pull frames from the source, edit them in Photoshop or Nuke, or inside Luma with image models such as Uni-1, Nano Banana or GPT Image, then feed them back at the same source-frame positions. The model steers the whole clip toward those edited frames. This is the route for a precise wardrobe, sign or product change, where a prompt alone tends to drift. Filmmakers grading in ACES will find more on that pipeline in our guide for filmmakers.

Motion, Structure and Character: deciding what survives

Two dials instead of one

Adherence is split in two. Motion holds the timing of the source clip; Structure holds its layout. Each runs Off, Auto, or 1 to 9, where 9 preserves the most, and Auto is on by default. Luma's guide gives one setting worth memorizing: Structure at 8 holds the subject firmly while freeing the background, which works like a green screen without one, though the model does not detect a color key. Structure at 9 locks the whole frame. That suits a look change on an unchanged shot, but it leaves no room for a new environment or time of day.

Character locks

Character controls are separate locks that stack. Faces keeps people recognizable, Bodies holds build, and a skeletal mode holds pose in two flavors: Poses tracks joints and the bones between them and adheres tightly, while Blocking tracks only key joints and leaves more freedom. One combination stands out. Bodies plus Poses, with Motion and Structure switched off, captures a performer's movement tightly and can infer the camera move from the body. A character style swap restyles a person into an anime, 3D or painted look without replacing them. Replacing who appears on screen is a separate character swap mode.

If you learned Modify from older tutorials

Older guides describe Adhere, Flex and Reimagine. Those were the presets of Modify Video when it launched in June 2025, in the app formerly called Dream Machine. Ray3.2 replaced them. Structure is the old scale reversed, so a higher number now means more fidelity, and Motion has no old equivalent at all. The three presets survive only in Ray3.14 Modify and in the legacy API, so a tutorial that tells you to pick Flex is describing a different model than the one Luma recommends today.

What a modify costs in credits

Ray3.2 video to video is charged per second of source video, and Reframe has its own per-second rate. Both rows in Luma's pricing table are SDR. HDR costs 2x the SDR credits and HDR plus EXR 3x. Luma's pricing table adds a note to Ray3.2: 'No keyframes: plus 30 credits'. The page does not expand on it, so check the credit counter in the app before you queue a long batch. The pricing page ties no video-to-video feature to Pro or Ultra; they add credits and Luma's '4x' and '15x usage with the Luma Agents' lines, not tools, while commercial use starts with a paid plan such as Plus.

Luma's own pages show the same video-to-video rate as clip totals: 720 credits for 5 seconds at 1080p and 1,440 for 10 seconds, so doubling the source doubles the bill. By our arithmetic, if every credit goes to 5-second 1080p SDR modifies with no failed or rejected takes, Plus's 10,000 monthly credits cover 13 of them, Pro's 40,000 cover 55 and Ultra's 150,000 cover 208. At 10 seconds the counts fall to 6, 27 and 104. HDR and EXR finals cut those counts further.

Two things do not save credits: Speed mode and rejecting takes. Speed mode returns results faster than the default Quality mode, but Luma says it saves time, not cost. Failed generations get their credits back, but takes you reject still cost credits (pricing). Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle, so a plan's allowance is use-it-or-lose-it. The entry plan is Plus at $30 a month billed monthly or $25 a month billed yearly ($300 a year), for 10,000 credits a month.

Reframe: a new aspect ratio without a reshoot

Reframe changes a clip's aspect ratio and generates the missing picture instead of cropping it, tracking subjects so faces stay in frame and carrying the original audio over. It offers six ratios: 9:16, 3:4, 1:1, 4:3, 16:9 and 21:9. In Ray3.2 it can also extend the frame or replace a background after the take. Luma says Reframe is available in all paid plans ^[3]. Its May 2025 launch spec accepted uploads up to 30 seconds or 100 MB, including footage not made in Luma.

The typical job is one landscape master turned into a 9:16 cut for TikTok, Reels and Shorts plus a 1:1 version for feeds. Reframe bills 120 credits per second at 1080p against 144 for a full modify, and Luma pitches it as cheaper than regenerating a shot for each format. So reframe whenever the content itself is already right. Draft the reframe at 360p first: at 10 credits per second, a bad fill costs little. When an edit needs both a new look and a new ratio, restyle first, then reframe the approved take.

When Ray3.2 is the wrong tool

Ray3.2 cannot change a clip's length or loop it. When the duration must change, Luma points to Ray3.14 Modify, which uses a start-and-end workflow and runs up to 18 seconds, but has no character reference and no HDR or EXR in Modify. Extending a clip is a Ray3.14 job too. Fast action is the other weak spot. Luma's pages warn that quick movement across the frame may lose detail, and that a subject filling more of the frame holds its motion better. Shoot or crop tighter before you modify.

Other models in the same workspace modify video too, on the same credits. Seedance 2.5 from ByteDance has an edit mode under Modify Video at 44, 94 or 230 credits per second at 480p, 720p and 1080p, and its separate video-to-video rows bill on generated plus reference video. Kling 4.0 Omni, a model from Kling AI, adds video-to-video at 32 or 47 credits per second at 720p and 1080p. Kling, Seedance and other outside models in Luma can change in availability, length limits and price. Read the current row before you switch.

The bottom line

Luma's video to video is a focused editing tool, not a generator in disguise. Feed Ray3.2 a clip of 20 seconds or less, describe the finished frame, set Motion and Structure for how much of the original must survive, and draft at 360p before paying 144 credits per second for a 1080p final. Reframe covers the format work for less. Choose Ray3.14 Modify for length changes or loops, and keep shots tight when the action is fast.