Dear Mike,
Where do you usually place the LUT? On the first node (and do the grading in the following nodes) or on the last node (and do the grading "under" it, in the previous nodes)?
Thanks!
George
If you're going to use a LUT with a log image, you always need to be able to do some adjustments prior to the LUT or there's no point to using the log image in the first place. You might also want to do some things after the LUT, such as color isolations, because at that point in the processing path, you'll have more contrast and more saturation to use for those operations. So ideally you would want to place the LUT either on the first node (LUTs are always evaluated last on any node they're on, so everything else in that node is by definition before the LUT) or on a separate node. That way you can do your basic exposure corrections before the LUT, and your isolated colors, vignettes, and other things after it. If you're interested, I explain all of this in the blog posts.