Best LUTs for Weapon?

[Mike Nagel]

It would be interesting to see what ARRI colour scientists and developers could do with the colour filter array channels from RED, for example. It would look different. There's lots of things that are akin to demosaick algorithms that can be done on the image after debayer. For example, denoising is closely related to demosaic.

it would be interesting, but not sure if any useful or better what Graeme provides... would also be interested to see what Graeme would squeeze out of the ALEV sensor... ;-)

debayering and color science is paired and tweaked/adjusted/optimised for a given sensor... the sensor's characteristics are more important than the CS afterwards... the CS can squeeze as much as possible out of it and try to clean up certain problem areas but it can't create what is not there (--> what wasn't captured) and/or it is limited as it cannot know what the real scene looked like... the latter is the real problem if the sensor contaminates the capture and/or smears colors under certain conditions... or maybe the CS is inferior and and distorts the image...

sure, technically speaking u can (try to) do in post whatever u want from the raw but true IQ/PQ and image pop comes from very clean color separation, whatever u do with the image afterwards creatively whether uniform across the frame and/or preferably in isolated areas is a purely creative choice depending on the story the image tells...

the problem is that one does not and cannot know where the image is contaminated (by the sensor and/or CS), whether lightly (uniform) or partially (areas within the frame)... any high end colorist knows that... work off color charts try to get the image closer to the actual scene appearance... u will see a different image now than just working off RLF/DC1-2 and white balance... and u will still now see partial contamination that is there although some parts of the image are aligned just fine and appear very very accurate... but u still may experience greenish and/or unrealistic skin tones...

and surely raw provides almost unlimited potential but I can tell u, u can only bend the image so much... best bet (as always) is to shoot under optimal conditions which mostly means full control over lighting and avoid mixed lighting like the pest...

very interested to see what LI will be able to do as a global tweak to the Dragon capture but since they'll be using a custom OLPF u see already that they're adjusting the sensor capture before the actual A/D and CS kicks in...

I say it'll be good for all of us

 

[Marc Wielage]

RLF is the same curve as Cineon, therefore they are the same thing. So, what are you objecting to?

Syntax and context.

If Fincher had this for 7even I'm sure he would have used such feature in camera. I have no clue how he is working now but I can only guess is that he got a few luts loaded into his cameras to choose from.

I have been told that Fincher doesn't even use a DIT on set -- merely a data operator who keeps track of files, syncs everything up, backs up everything, transcodes viewing copies and editing copies, and organizes each day's material. Fincher's a bright, technically-astute guy who knows what the range of correction will be in post later on. He's also a guy who does not want to fiddle with LUTs on set -- he wants to shoot and move on, because time is money, and it's important to keep up the momentum of production as quickly as possible.

So no there is no need to fiddle with luts in camera or anywhere else. But simply to have three layers of grading in camera is not a bad thing to be able to have. A lut on top, and then be able to select red gama of choice underneath and then the iso and other sliders and curve...

Try it without a LUT for a change and see what happens. I have tried it with a LUT, and I've tried it without a LUT. If I can recreate the look of the LUT (which sounds like a Burt Bacharach song: "The Look of LUT"), then no LUT is needed. That's all I'm saying. Don't delude yourself into thinking you have to use a LUT, or that LUTs are the best way to achieve what you want.

The adjustments they've done to RedColor over the years have been pretty good, and the latest combo of DragonColor and RedLogFilm work fine to me. I can get a usable look out of that in 15 seconds or less, and then just grab that setting and apply it to the same clips shot in the same space with the same camera, same lighting, same exposure. Once that's done, I just refine what's there and make the scene look reasonable. It's not rocket science. It's hard work, crafted precisely the way the specific DP shot on that day, with those lenses, and that particular camera. A LUT won't do that for you.

 

[jake blackstone]

Syntax.

No seriously, what are you objecting to?

 

[Marc Wielage]

As much as I love film, I certainly enjoy the control and consistency of digital formats a lot more. It tidied up many headaches "eventually".

I have to say, the wild inconsistency of film has always been a huge headache. I have worked on projects where every single roll of film was 10% different from every other roll of film, all shot within maybe a 2-hour period. The labs could be horribly inconsistent in terms of bath temperature, grain, color, all kinds of stuff. I think Kodak's own emulsions were pretty reliable. But digital is rock-solid consistent, and when it's exposed and lit right, it can be very beautiful and still tell the story in its own very pleasing, dramatic way.

I've often said: "I would take well-shot digital over shabbily-shot film any day of the week." But if time and cost were no object, then I'd pick film if I could. For real-world projects, I accept that digital is going to be used, and life goes on. Every colorist in town has a degree of "secret sauce" designed to pull a little more out of digital images. I know several who have "stock looks" for Red, Alexa, Canon, Sony, and whatever else you want to use. I usually build custom looks like that on a per-project basis, generally a setting for every lighting setup and location. I couldn't in good conscience sell them, because they were created for a specific client, and my feeling is they'd only work for those particular projects.

I have never had an instance where a look for an Alexa would work for a Red, or a look for a Sony would work for Canon. I don't dispute what Jake says about ACES and also Resolve Color Management, and all of these are very good tools for productions routinely using a wide range of cameras. The new daVinci Color Transform Language (DCTL) could be a big thing, and already some are talking about creating DCTLs as downloads for use with a wide range of projects. If my reading of the literature is correct, DCTLs will overcome some of the limitations of traditional LUTs, plus they'll be compatible with a wide range of different color & gamma spaces. But even DCTLs are not a replacement for a hand-crafted look customized for a specific project.

 

[Marc Wielage]

No seriously, what are you objecting to?

Flip the sentence around, then it's correct. But your comparison is apt. The trick is that Cineon came first, so that's what eventually led to things like RedLogFilm and Log-C and Sony SLog. (And there were quasi-Log digital cameras prior to those, including Panalog with the Genesis cameras and a pseudo-log with the experimental Arri D-20 and D-21 cameras.)

All things digital stem from Cineon. Read Glenn Kennel's book Color & Mastering for Digital Cinema, which goes into it in great detail; David Stump's Digital Cinematography also goes over some of the same territory with real-world applications. Some of these are dry technical discussions, but they put the whole LUT / Colorspace / look / exposure range / dynamic range discussion in context.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

e adjustments they've done to RedColor over the years have been pretty good, and the latest combo of DragonColor and RedLogFilm work fine to me. I can get a usable look out of that in 15 seconds or less, and then just grab that setting and apply it to the same clips shot in the same space with the same camera, same lighting, same exposure. Once that's done, I just refine what's there and make the scene look reasonable. It's not rocket science. It's hard work, crafted precisely the way the specific DP shot on that day, with those lenses, and that particular camera. A LUT won't do that for you.

Hey Marc, I can get much more out of a camera in 1 second. It's not a "look", it's a color response improvement. You are right, a LUT won't do that. I did. LUT carries it.

It takes a *bit more* work to get to that 1 sec. By a *bit more* I mean month(s) of camera analysis, tests and tweaks, compared to which typical grading and chart matching is not quite the same, to say the least.

I am very well aware of great underestimation of a colorist's work today and agree with many of your points, having experienced them personally, but please don't generalize and undervalue a tool just because of the current trend and mentality utilizing it in a certain way.

 

[jake blackstone]

Flip the sentence around, then it's correct. But your comparison is apt. The trick is that Cineon came first, so that's what eventually led to things like RedLogFilm and Log-C and Sony SLog. (And there were quasi-Log digital cameras prior to those, including Panalog with the Genesis cameras and a pseudo-log with the experimental Arri D-20 and D-21 cameras.)

All things digital stem from Cineon. Read Glenn Kennel's book Color & Mastering for Digital Cinema, which goes into it in great detail; David Stump's Digital Cinematography also goes over some of the same territory with real-world applications. Some of these are dry technical discussions, but they put the whole LUT / Colorspace / look / exposure range / dynamic range discussion in context.

Who gives a shit what came first?
Once more Marc. RLF and Cineon is the same gamma curve. And as they are the same thing, it doesn't matter, if you flip the sentece or not. It's just a simple logic. So, what is it, that you're objecting to in the statement? I'm still dumfounded...
And BTW, not all things digital stem from Cineon. Actually it's more like none. All things digital stem from linear, as all modern digital cameras, with very few exceptions, use CMOS sensors, that are linear in their response to the exposure. And ACES foundation is linear as well...

 

[Anthony Berenato Jr]

I think I remember the topic of conversation being "learning more about LUTs on Weapon" before everyone started rolling out e-peens and talking up personal special sauces that are forever under lock and key. That's not constructive communication.

Even the people asking for shared LUTs just want to learn... Ignore their persistence, but still help them with their quest. Don't post photos of your "thick image" LUT if you're not going to help users understand by explaining the process of what your mindset is with manipulating the curves and how you actually went about doing it. What did you use? How can we try it ourselves as well? It just gets more frustrating. It's flashy, everything I've read here in the last few days has been driven by ego.

Honestly, I keep checking this post every day hoping someone will actually write something beneficial about learning how to craft LUTs for Weapon. I just purchased Lattice and I would absolutely love to know what sort of steps I need to take to start building my own LUTs. I don't care for stealing anyone else's art of chocolate pudding. I want to take some common LUTs I found online as a starting point and maybe blend in some of my own color-choices and thoughts.

Where do I start? What am I exporting from RCX? A PNG RedLogFilm image? JPG? What color space do I choose when exporting? sRGB or my color-corrected monitor profile from my Spyder? Where do I work on my looks? Lattice has a cool little tutorial on building LUTs in Lightroom. Is this the common place to do your building? When I'm back in Lattice, do I still need to convert Color Space - or just drop in the RedLogFilm image and drop the new LUT over it? Any conversation I need to do for RED? Scale any values to 1? What are some tips and tricks to getting things to work correctly?

These are questions which would greatly help the REDUser. I'd appreciate all answers directed back to the general topic at hand.

 

[Phil Holland]

Even the people asking for shared LUTs just want to learn... Ignore their persistence, but still help them with their quest. Don't post photos of your "thick image" LUT if you're not going to help users understand by explaining the process of what your mindset is with manipulating the curves and how you actually went about doing it. What did you use? How can we try it ourselves as well? It just gets more frustrating. It's flashy, everything I've read here in the last few days has been driven by ego.

Erg... I thought i explained the general concept of thickening the image via adjusting the Gamma Curve and posted images with the RLF and REDgamma4 to show a comparison between the general looks. That comparison should be enough to understand the overall changes to the curve, even posted it in black and white to simplify things.

But perhaps I didn't do that.

Hard to tell.

Anyways. Most of the time for grading I'm using Resolve or Lumetri within Adobe Premiere Pro CC these days as well as REDCINE-X Pro.

In terms of LUTs, you can create them in a great deal of programs. I'd recommend the above as they are fairly easy to get into as well.

Be careful crafting LUTs based on Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom looks. You can introduce tonal banding very, very, very easily as well as strange colors. It should not be the primary tool for "this job".

I would however love to see Adobe implement a 3D exporter for ACR/LR. Been asking for that forever. You can indeed now, through Photoshop, export your Adjustment Layers as a 3D LUT which produces much more ideal results.

 

[Mike Nagel]

I think I remember the topic of conversation being "learning more about LUTs on Weapon" before everyone started rolling out e-peens and talking up personal special sauces that are forever under lock and key. That's not constructive communication.

Even the people asking for shared LUTs just want to learn... Ignore their persistence, but still help them with their quest. Don't post photos of your "thick image" LUT if you're not going to help users understand by explaining the process of what your mindset is with manipulating the curves and how you actually went about doing it. What did you use? How can we try it ourselves as well? It just gets more frustrating. It's flashy, everything I've read here in the last few days has been driven by ego.

Honestly, I keep checking this post every day hoping someone will actually write something beneficial about learning how to craft LUTs for Weapon. I just purchased Lattice and I would absolutely love to know what sort of steps I need to take to start building my own LUTs. I don't care for stealing anyone else's art of chocolate pudding. I want to take some common LUTs I found online as a starting point and maybe blend in some of my own color-choices and thoughts.

Where do I start? What am I exporting from RCX? A PNG RedLogFilm image? JPG? What color space do I choose when exporting? sRGB or my color-corrected monitor profile from my Spyder? Where do I work on my looks? Lattice has a cool little tutorial on building LUTs in Lightroom. Is this the common place to do your building? When I'm back in Lattice, do I still need to convert Color Space - or just drop in the RedLogFilm image and drop the new LUT over it? Any conversation I need to do for RED? Scale any values to 1? What are some tips and tricks to getting things to work correctly?

These are questions which would greatly help the REDUser. I'd appreciate all answers directed back to the general topic at hand.

tbh, if u read this thread carefully and read between the lines everything has been said for "newcomers".

3D LUTs are color transforms along vectors within the RGB cube. u don't need them at all. there are 2 type of 3D LUTs one can consider using:

(1) technical LUTs

what LI at PV is creating and what Hrvoje is referring to. Those are supposed to bring the image into a better, cleaner, more neutral starting space. Direct adjustment for the given cam. Hopefully this works under any shooting condition. This would be great to have for everybody. It's another layer on top (and/or alongside) of the RED color science.

(2) Creative LUTs

as has been said by a few here now: absolute personal preference and need to be considered on a case by case basis. And even the personal favorites need to be tweaked for any given project. There is no one click magic LUT. forget that. Learn grading and/or start working with a good colorist.

3D LUTs are very, very powerful because they can make pin point targeted adjustments. Careful what u wish for, this can introduce banding immediately.... or noise.... or degrade the image in other parts..... and u will only see that when u apply the LUT and then playback ur footage in real time and look carefully.... the still frame does not fully tell what is really happening to ur footage

3D LUTs are not "needed" in grading, but can be very useful for very targeted adjustment for a specific part of the frame and/or problem areas.

Most grading is done in broad strokes... and this is what u should consider starting out with... and for this u don't need LUTs at all. Open RCX or better free version of Resolve and learn basic grading. Look at your image and know what u want and then start making adjustments to get there. Every shot/scene will be different so understanding what u actually want is the key - and then understand the tools for the given sw u work with to actually get there... the LUT doesn't know any of that, it always transforms the same way, and this is why many have stated here already that u can't use the same LUT all the time...

so - IMO - in creative grading: using a 3D LUT alongside (--> usually at the end of) a grade to tackle further, fine adjustments to the image that cannot be really done in the sw u work with as it is lacking the controls for these targeted adjustments, that can be useful...

If the sw u work with has controls/tools for the adjustments u want to make, then again there is zero need for a 3D LUT.

Another thing to understand is that not every color adjustment can be represented in a 3D LUT... so power windows/shapes, animations etc cannot be carried over.

U can create grades and export them as LUTs in many apps: Photoshop, Resolve or 3DLUTCreator (look at their promo videos and be amazed)... but as has been said: careful what u wish for, it can cause more problems than good.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Syntax and context.


I have been told that Fincher doesn't even use a DIT on set -- merely a data operator who keeps track of files, syncs everything up, backs up everything, transcodes viewing copies and editing copies, and organizes each day's material. Fincher's a bright, technically-astute guy who knows what the range of correction will be in post later on. He's also a guy who does not want to fiddle with LUTs on set -- he wants to shoot and move on, because time is money, and it's important to keep up the momentum of production as quickly as possible.


Try it without a LUT for a change and see what happens. I have tried it with a LUT, and I've tried it without a LUT. If I can recreate the look of the LUT (which sounds like a Burt Bacharach song: "The Look of LUT"), then no LUT is needed. That's all I'm saying. Don't delude yourself into thinking you have to use a LUT, or that LUTs are the best way to achieve what you want.

The adjustments they've done to RedColor over the years have been pretty good, and the latest combo of DragonColor and RedLogFilm work fine to me. I can get a usable look out of that in 15 seconds or less, and then just grab that setting and apply it to the same clips shot in the same space with the same camera, same lighting, same exposure. Once that's done, I just refine what's there and make the scene look reasonable. It's not rocket science. It's hard work, crafted precisely the way the specific DP shot on that day, with those lenses, and that particular camera. A LUT won't do that for you.

You do understand that redlogfilm is a look/lut. It goes from cameraRGB to cineon and its a look that kodak developed to mimic a generic celuoid negative... So if you want to start from the base you need to start from cameraRGB wich is linear.

All this talk about not using luts and instad use a real colorists and so on. Well, some of the colorists that we work with are considered the top dogs of this industry and all of them got luts and use luts quite frequently.

Today I was sitting in session with Ola Bäccman who I (and quite a few others) consider to be a very real colorist and yes he was starting from redlog and then a shit load of nodes to even out our not so uniform material (5 days, 3 different cameras, drastically changing weather in the swiss alps). and after getting it even he was flipping trough quite a stack of luts and settled for one and added some aditional tweaks on top of that. Very likly he could create the very same grade without that lut, but in my book only end results counts, so if he built the grade completly by him self or used some of the shelf ingredients in his sauce i could not care less about.Shit looked good and that whats matter. No?

Regarding David Fincher I dont know anything about him but the big shoulder cameras he desighed with the built in screens etc... to me its odd if they did not have some additional lut handling on thier outputs just like, as I understand, Panavision have on thier cameras. But thats me guessing.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I think I remember the topic of conversation being "learning more about LUTs on Weapon" before everyone started rolling out e-peens and talking up personal special sauces that are forever under lock and key. That's not constructive communication.

Even the people asking for shared LUTs just want to learn... Ignore their persistence, but still help them with their quest. Don't post photos of your "thick image" LUT if you're not going to help users understand by explaining the process of what your mindset is with manipulating the curves and how you actually went about doing it. What did you use? How can we try it ourselves as well? It just gets more frustrating. It's flashy, everything I've read here in the last few days has been driven by ego.

Honestly, I keep checking this post every day hoping someone will actually write something beneficial about learning how to craft LUTs for Weapon. I just purchased Lattice and I would absolutely love to know what sort of steps I need to take to start building my own LUTs. I don't care for stealing anyone else's art of chocolate pudding. I want to take some common LUTs I found online as a starting point and maybe blend in some of my own color-choices and thoughts.

Where do I start? What am I exporting from RCX? A PNG RedLogFilm image? JPG? What color space do I choose when exporting? sRGB or my color-corrected monitor profile from my Spyder? Where do I work on my looks? Lattice has a cool little tutorial on building LUTs in Lightroom. Is this the common place to do your building? When I'm back in Lattice, do I still need to convert Color Space - or just drop in the RedLogFilm image and drop the new LUT over it? Any conversation I need to do for RED? Scale any values to 1? What are some tips and tricks to getting things to work correctly?

These are questions which would greatly help the REDUser. I'd appreciate all answers directed back to the general topic at hand.

Agree I tried to post one but then more talk about whats a lut and what is not and the same old discussion from colorists why not to use them which I find a bit derailing of the thread.

A good start i think is to buy the koij luts they got some cool looking print stock luts calibrated for redlog film and there are many other creative luts to buy and most cost very little. I guess the lack of sharing luts can be due to the fact that you are not really aloud to share luts that you buy which have been discussed at length in other lut threads in this forum.

But if you take a redlog ref image then apply a lut you can choose to alter the image above or underneath that lut and you can collapse / combine two or more luts into one and do so together with your other adjustment layers. So for example you can have one lut going to aces from redlog film and another from aces to some creative grade and by collapsing those two into one and exporting it as a 33x33x33 cube lut you can get the result of the two transforms with one lut in camera. And asb this is applied above the other colour settings in camera you can still do your basic red cine x stuff like curves iso kelvin etc.


To get them into camera depending what kind they are you possibly need to convert them. I find lattice to be a good converter that also can scale and combind luts. Cube format works well, then there is a few cube sub formats in lattice to choose from, I dont remember if they all work in weapon but I think so or there is one named resolve which I assume should work fine.

So you can grade a redlog film image in photoshop using an adjustment layers or a compositing or program and export as a lut. Then In lattice i made sure my luts where the right size and export as cube luts into a folder named "luts" on the ssd and import from there.

I'm a flame guy and do not know many other programs that well but in flame I can build a stack of luts and export and also get a inversed version of the lut. So not only do I get that as a grade I also get a "ungrade" lut that reverse the transformation. Naturally such process could be destructive if it crunch the colors hard. For example if the lut makes the image burned out white then the inverse lut will not be able to bring the colors back.

 

[jake blackstone]

You do understand that redlogfilm is a look/lut. It goes from cameraRGB to cineon and its a look that kodak developed to mimic a generic celuoid negative... So if you want to start from the base you need to start from cameraRGB wich is linear.

First of all RLF is not a look, it's a gamma curve, like RedColor or Log-C or S-Log etc. And it is not a LUT either. It just applies a gamma curve to a Linear RAW image.
Second, Cineon was never designed to "mimic a generic celluloid negative". Curve can't do that. At the time when Cineon was originally proposed, there was no need to emulate the film, as all theatrical acquisition was already being shot on film and digital cinema cameras weren't even on a horizon. At that time Cineon addressed two things. First, it was designed to mimic human vision. Humans see very well in the dark, down to a single photons, but human vision is very bad a high brightness levels. So, the Cineon curve assigned higher resolution to the darker areas of the curve, where more precision was needed and compressed the high brightness values, where less precision was needed. The second reason why Cineon was born was the need for lossless compression. When film started being scanned and processed, it was determined, that 12 bits color resolution was an absolute minimum for the image to retain quality and avoid banding in order to be able to digitally manipulate it. Unfortunately, at the time, hardware had difficulties processing at those levels of color resolution and disk space was at premium too. So, Cineon allowed to "squeeze" 12 bit of linear data into a 10 bit of Log container without a loss of quality. And so, Cineon was borne. Incidentally, many still use 10 bit Log DPX images for the DI workflow.
Nowadays, there are no more real hardware limitations, cameras shoot Linear natively, so Log slowly is on the way out. And that is why ACES workflow is the future, because ACES is built on the Linear foundation.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Hey Marc, I can get much more out of a camera in 1 second. It's not a "look", it's a color response improvement. You are right, a LUT won't do that. I did. LUT carries it.

Whether it takes 1 second or 1 minute, the point is that I don't want to just throw in a canned look. I want to optimize what's there, and that requires thought, effort, and experience. I could theoretically have LUTs for "Day for Night," "Cold/Dreary," "Warm/Upbeat," "Gritty/Urban," "Blue/Strange," "Bleach Bypass," "Sepia Brown," but we'd be here all day dialing through the LUT file that way. If I just do it by hand, I can come up with something based on client feedback in 20-30 seconds, maybe less. Once that becomes a customized Powergrade made just for that project, then I can push one button and apply that to many, many shots... or not.

I wonder how many of you guys are using any kind of control surface. If you were picking at the controls with a mouse, then I could see where you'd struggle to turn the knobs and desperately want something as simple as a LUT to solve your problem. One of our secrets (mine anyway) is that I'm constantly turning two knobs at the same time, and that's something you can't do with one mouse. I also sometimes build in keys, clips, sharpening, and windows into a look, and none of those can be done from a LUT.

You do understand that redlogfilm is a look/lut. It goes from cameraRGB to cineon and its a look that kodak developed to mimic a generic celuoid negative... So if you want to start from the base you need to start from cameraRGB wich is linear.

Naaaa, RedLogFilm is just part of color science, a gamma curve. You can split hairs on where color science ends and a LUT begins, but I've read Graeme Nattress' technical papers, and I think he knows what he's talking about. I don't have a problem using RedColor and RLF. Besides, that's done on a per project basis, so it's not a LUT you decide on shot to shot or scene to scene.

What troubles me is that the o.p. is basically saying (as I interpret it): "how can I easily get a great look from my Red Weapon without knowing anything or without having to do a lot of work?" I could flip this over and say, "I want to shoot on Red Weapon. What's the easiest way I can throw a light up and not have to worry about exposure, and still get great pictures?" In both cases, you need time, knowledge, and experience to get the best results. There is no magic, there is no plug-in, there is no automatic way to have talent.

I think Hitler should have the last word:

 

[Björn Benckert]

First of all RLF is not a look, it's a gamma curve, like RedColor or Log-C or S-Log etc. And it is not a LUT either. It just applies a gamma curve to a Linear RAW image.
Second, Cineon was never designed to "mimic a generic celluloid negative". Curve can't do that. At the time when Cineon was originally proposed, there was no need to emulate the film, as all theatrical acquisition was already being shot on film and digital cinema cameras weren't even on a horizon. At that time Cineon addressed two things. First, it was designed to mimic human vision. Humans see very well in the dark, down to a single photons, but human vision is very bad a high brightness levels. So, the Cineon curve assigned higher resolution to the darker areas of the curve, where more precision was needed and compressed the high brightness values, where less precision was needed. The second reason why Cineon was born was the need for lossless compression. When film started being scanned and processed, it was determined, that 12 bits color resolution was an absolute minimum for the image to retain quality and avoid banding in order to be able to digitally manipulate it. Unfortunately, at the time, hardware had difficulties processing at those levels of color resolution and disk space was at premium too. So, Cineon allowed to "squeeze" 12 bit of linear data into a 10 bit of Log container without a loss of quality. And so, Cineon was borne. Incidentally, many still use 10 bit Log DPX images for the DI workflow.
Nowadays, there are no more real hardware limitations, cameras shoot Linear natively, so Log slowly is on the way out. And that is why ACES workflow is the future, because ACES is built on the Linear foundation.

A 1D lut is a curve... cineon is a gamma curve so to me that makes it a lut. I had a cineon license back in the 90s and used the program on a daily basis for long time to composite CG stuff onto 4k 16 bit scans. The cg stuff was rendered linear and then to merge it with negative scans we apply the cineon lut to give it a somewhat the same starting point as the scans. then just as today, nothing was a perfect match and needed to be tweaked.

But even if the cameras where not digital back then there was quite a lot linear digital generated material.

 

[Björn Benckert]

And again can we not skip all these comments about grading with a real colonist by somebody that knows what his doing etc... this thread was, as I understand started out of curiosity if anyone had any nice luts to use in weapon. So far the discussions back and forth regarding, what a lut actually is and why they should not be used is really contributing anything to the thread, on the contrary we are derailing it from the topic.


So back to the subject.
Here is another screen dump Shot with normal EF canon zoom last night.
A VFX plate I shot up on my roof to get smoke against something almost black. Difficult in the land of midnight sun.... But to me it´s fasinating that I can stand infront of the camera on my roof top with a shitty construction light and a smoke charger in one hand and my iPhone in the other and control iso, curves etc under an applied 3D print lut in camera and see the result changing on the screen while filming it. I find that very cool and I find the result to look richer than I could make it with just using the in camera sliders without a 3D lut on top.



Same lut as linked to before.

url=https://flic.kr/p/JyCkWV]

[/url]PastedGraphic-20 2 by Björn Benckert

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Whether it takes 1 second or 1 minute, the point is that I don't want to just throw in a canned look. I want to optimize what's there, and that requires thought, effort, and experience.

That's an understandable point.

I spend month(s) for each camera analysis, transform design, testing, optimization, more testing, further optimization and more testing. Custom methodology I designed specially for this purpose. It took a while. There might be some thought, effort and experience in there, through camera and post work required to achieve this.

It isn't a canned look, I have allergy to those. It is camera response design and optimization. Completely different philosophy and neither a simple conversion tool nor insta-art replacing a colorist. I use that as a basis for a context-designed creative look and everything else down the pipe and on this basis the material behaves differently in the image manipulation chain.

 

[Marc Wielage]

It isn't a canned look, I have allergy to those. It is camera response design and optimization. Completely different philosophy and neither a simple conversion tool nor insta-art replacing a colorist. I use that as a basis for a context-designed creative look and everything else down the pipe and on this basis the material behaves differently in the image manipulation chain.

I can't argue with that at all. If you've come up with a specific customized LUT intended precisely for the way you shoot and the material you've shot, that's perfectly fine. And if a DP has shot with a LUT in mind for a project, I always have the ability to pull up that look. From there, we can choose to either throw out that LUT and create the same look a different way, or we can just use the custom LUT and move on.

Same lut as linked to before.

url=https://flic.kr/p/JyCkWV]

[/url]PastedGraphic-20 2 by Björn Benckert

I'd argue that the image isn't optimum because it needs a window. The wall behind the person is too bright in relation to the person, and we need to direct the audience's eye away from the wall and towards the guy. The LUT won't give you a window. I also think the blacks are borderling muddy, but that's a subjective call.

Remember Brian's original question:

Hey guys, I am curious as to what everyone's preferred LUTs are for Weapon in camera and post?

I would have three answers to be reasonable:

1) just use DragonColor and DragonGamma4 for dailies, which is very simple, one-click and done.

2) or start with DragonColor or RedLogFilm in the color-correction program of your choice and create your own look.

3) or invest in Resolve and try one of the 50 or so LUTs BMD gives you for free with the program.

I personally think there are better ways to make good pictures than using a LUT, but if you like the picture, that's all that matters. Just bear in mind you will run into situations where the LUT looks bad, and sometimes it'll look bad in a way that can't be easily undone. You'll have more control over the look if you do it all yourself.

 

[Mike Nagel]

I can't argue with that at all. If you've come up with a specific customized LUT intended precisely for the way you shoot and the material you've shot.

As far as I understand it, he created a technical LUT that generally improves camera response - similar to what LI is currently doing at PV. This brings the footage into a better starting place, it's not specific to the way he shoots and/or specific shots - and it's not a look, it improves the captured data. Everything else comes afterwards.

 

[Brett Harrison]

it would be interesting, but not sure if any useful or better what Graeme provides... would also be interested to see what Graeme would squeeze out of the ALEV sensor... ;-)

I was thinking about this very thing today actually.

Great post!

If anyone is interested, I've taken the Log and display transforms of RED and ARRI and crossed them over to see what difference they make, using the ACES primaries of each camera. It's fairly on topic to what we're talking about here.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...eking-advice&p=1640210&viewfull=1#post1640210

Scroll up for Sam Sheppard's comments. Very informed fellow.