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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Weapon LUTs and Pro Res

Tom Gleeson

Tom Gleeson

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I have loaded some LUTs into my Weapon and assign them to my HDSDI output for monitoring but was wondering how I apply them to the Pro Res files? I assume this can be done as a look applied to rushes for editorial would be very important. Has anyone managed to apply a LUT to the pro Res recording?
 
Phil mentioned this is possible and that he was going to post some details about the process, as I tried to investigate this at the RED Store and spent a solid hour trying to get it to work and couldn't get LUTs to bake into the prores files... And LUTs don't automatically show up in RC-X either as it seems to require a post-processing effect to apply the LUT, though they do get recorded in each clip folder.
 
Ok thanks for that Noah as the the DSMC Manual seems silent on this but it would be a weird choice by Red and dissapointing if the LUTs could not be applied to the pro Res files? I suppose we can assume from the Reduser silence that not many people are yet leveraging the LUT abilities in the Weapon. I think we need to page Mr. Holland?
 
Ok I suspect I am talking to myself but I noticed that since loading LUTs into the camera that the camera is now writing a LUT file to every folder along with the R3D and .mov file. This is a little weird as I presently have the LUT loaded to look B and I had the camera at the time set for look A so no LUT was applied. Also the camera became unstable on its first shoot and I am getting a lot of "buffer overload" errors and shutdowns. This may or may not relate to the installation of the LUTs but I will be removing them today as I am shooting all this week.

Seeing the LUT or .cube file written into the media folders makes me think that maybe you will not be able to bake in the LUT to the .mov files and the onus will be on Editorial to apply the LUTs? I hope this is not the case although choice is a good thing I would mostly prefer to lock it in to the .mov files knowing I have neutral R3D files.
 
Not talking to yourself... with an order in for Scarlet-W, I too am very curious about this. I definitely assumed that the LUT could be baked into the ProRes dailies. It would be unfortunate if this was not an option.
 
I think it's pretty clear you can't judging from the silence from red and Phil holland
 
Confirmed, I called red today during camera prep of my weapon for a commercial I start tomorrow. I asked the same question. Currently red weapons will not bake in 3D or 1D lut info to the pro res files. It must be applied in post. Its a very odd choice hope that gets a firmware update, I don't want my clients to see dailies without the lut we used. For now I'll just have my Dit make proxy's or apply the Luts.

hope that helps,

Graham Robbins
 
TO be honest. I think it's better not to bake in a LUT, but, I repeat, BUT, I understand why people would want to bake in a LUT. Hopefully there is just an easy way to apply that LUT when imported into an NLE. but I do think it is a good choice to keep the original media file "flat". Th ecolorists on reduser would probably agree, the DP's maybe not so much. :)

David
 
Noah Yuan-Vogel said:
Phil mentioned this is possible and that he was going to post some details about the process, as I tried to investigate this at the RED Store and spent a solid hour trying to get it to work and couldn't get LUTs to bake into the prores files... And LUTs don't automatically show up in RC-X either as it seems to require a post-processing effect to apply the LUT, though they do get recorded in each clip folder.
Click to expand...

That's not what I wrote, but I'll write up something succinct shortly.


Tommaso Alvisi said:
David,

I think he's referring to baking the LUT to the (prores) proxies...and I find this feature extremely important...
Click to expand...

Would it still be important if the 3D LUT that comes with the .RDC and .MOV files automatically detects and loads into 3rd party programs and players via intelligent sniff or metadata?

Just curious.
 
Phil Holland said:
Would it still be important if the 3D LUT that comes with the .RDC and .MOV files automatically detects and loads into 3rd party programs and players via intelligent sniff or metadata?

Just curious.
Click to expand...

That is what I was getting at. I would want the default behaviour to be NO BAKED IN LUT and I would want the camera to record a FLAT file with a sidecar LUT. That, to me, would be the ideal, especially if it auto loads. This would almost be as good as the RAW file in terms of flexibility.

David
 
Phil Holland said:
That's not what I wrote, but I'll write up something succinct shortly.




Would it still be important if the 3D LUT that comes with the .RDC and .MOV files automatically detects and loads into 3rd party programs and players via intelligent sniff or metadata?

Just curious.
Click to expand...

Sorry I must have misunderstood your answer. I guess I must have assumed "I'll write something up " was not "no".

I say the more automatic capabilities that keeps on-set intent on the image the better. Seems like supporting baked LUTs would be easier to implement than auto detecting LUTs, but I'll take both :)
 
Phil Holland said:
Would it still be important if the 3D LUT that comes with the .RDC and .MOV files automatically detects and loads into 3rd party programs and players via intelligent sniff or metadata?

Just curious.
Click to expand...

This is a dream we all have Phil...myself included!
But it's actually for using ProRes as a master format.

Also if you use some custom LUTs and they're embedded in the RDC and used as metadata,
you are essentially giving these away to every person who has access to the footage at the proxy/production stage.

David Battistella said:
That is what I was getting at. I would want the default behaviour to be NO BAKED IN LUT and I would want the camera to record a FLAT file with a sidecar LUT. That, to me, would be the ideal, especially if it auto loads. This would almost be as good as the RAW file in terms of flexibility.

David
Click to expand...

Of course, I'm with you David if we are talking about using ProRes files as a master format.
But again, I don't think Tom wants to use ProRes files with their LUT baked in for delivery...
For R3D+Proxy workflows is much more useful and safe to use baked in ProRes proxies IMHO.
Then why not having the option to have the LUT alongside the R3Ds in the RDC and activated automagically by RED SDK when importing,
to give the colorist a relatively precise reference (eventually shot by shot) which can be easily disabled at will.
 
Yeah. I think if the R3D and the PRORES file opens up with the LUT applied in the NLE or wherever you open it in it would be better than baked in. You do raise a very interesting point about custom LUT's and handing them over. TO me custom LUTs are for the post room and not really for the set , UNLESS they are working very closely together (like a revenant workflow).

But you open a can of worms with handing over custom LUT's to just anyone. Anyone who knows great colorists, you know how closely guarded their secret sauce is. I understand the creative potential of LUT's on set and I agree there are cases when you want to have custom LUT's. I think every DP should spend as much time in post as possible, but delivering baked in files is more than likely going to piss people off more than it will make them happy. There are just to many variables shot to shot AFTER an edit, to think that a LUT is going to resolve the problems.

David





Tommaso Alvisi said:
This is a dream we all have Phil...myself included!
But it's actually for using ProRes as a master format.

Also if you use some custom LUTs and they're embedded in the RDC and used as metadata,
you are essentially giving these away to every person who has access to the footage at the proxy/production stage.



Of course, I'm with you David if we are talking about using ProRes files as a master format.
But again, I don't think Tom wants to use ProRes files with their LUT baked in for delivery...
For R3D+Proxy workflows is much more useful and safe to use baked in ProRes proxies IMHO.
Then why not having the option to have the LUT alongside the R3Ds in the RDC and activated automagically by RED SDK when importing,
to give the colorist a relatively precise reference (eventually shot by shot) which can be easily disabled at will.
Click to expand...
 
The best option would be to be able to do it either way. Professional camera, flexibility, choices. I don't want red deciding for me.
 
Jake Wilganowski said:
The best option would be to be able to do it either way. Professional camera, flexibility, choices. I don't want red deciding for me.
Click to expand...

My guess is that it is currently the way it is to give you the most flexibility. :)

David
 
I want to burn it in for small jobs though
 
Yeah baked in LUT is required by some clients and it would be nice not to have to carry an extra recorder just to record the camera's monitor output.
 
yes, right now the LUTs is only applied on the various monitor paths (each can use either the A or B look, where B can have a LUT applied). Hopefully future FW upgrades will allow the LUT to be baked in PRORES files too.

FWIW (even tho this is not a 3D LUT so a bit off topic for this thread), the PRORES files will follow your R3D in camera metadata LOOK settings.
So your white balance, or if you apply a curve, a desaturation, or set LIFT GAMMA GAIN values for example, the PRORES files will be pre-graded too. Sharpness setting is also applied to the PRORES files.
It will not offer the same color finesse a 3D LUT can achieve but OTOH you can set all of this very easily via an app and keep a library of presets for your preferred quick looks :-)

Another small worthy note : as soon as you select an in-camera LUT on LOOK B in the Look Config menu it will be saved to the SSD media... even if LOOK B is not selected on any monitor path.
 
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