Is This a Good LUT?

[PS01]

Hi guys, I’m exploring LUTs to apply to my drone footage, and I need your input. What do you think of this? Does this look good or weird or okay or ugly?
What LUT do you think is awesome for cityscape? My city has got a lot of orange roof and trees. I know that teal & orange is a popular LUT but it makes trees look brownish.

 

[Deleted member 94047]

This is an extremely subjective question. It is also extremely contextual since it all depends on what you are trying to achieve. To give you my own opinion, I think this looks really bad. It is not just the trees, the sky is all wrong, the clouds (which could have added great effect to the picture) are also pushed down to being invisible. If your objective is to showcase the roofs, this is a great LUT; but I some how doubt that is what you are after. It really does an injustice to the footage. That is my impression, others could see it differently.

 

[THE CYBORG]

I know nothing of LUT’s but agree with Doppler in that if you are lucky enough to get clouds then you want to show them to the best advantage, they can really make a picture stand out from the crowd.

 

[WithTheBirds]

The first thing that comes to mind looking at your image is the effect often produced running colour transparency film through a C41 development process (cross processing). I would be surprised if the roofs were that orange, the pink and purple buildings look strange and the sky and the greens are definitely way off what we might expect to see. It’s an interesting effect no question but a long way from natural if that’s what you were after.

 

[PS01]

Thanks for your input guys! Have you got LUT to recommend that’s good for cityscape?

 

[Northwood Mediaworks]

Why not take a stab at color grading to your liking, its really just trial and error. There are loads of tutorials on YT etc...

 

[PS01]

Why not take a stab at color grading to your liking, its really just trial and error. There are loads of tutorials on YT etc...

LOL I have watched countless color grading vids on YouTube. I can only use Lumafusion on iPad. I haven’t yet found LUT that works great for this kind of cityscape. I do want to differentiate myself from the standard DJI normal look. I mean if anyone of you have a great LUT to recommend to me for cityscape, it’d be much appreciated.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Far too contrasty as well, the whole photo just looks a muddle with shadows going completely black, not the effect you should be going after, if you want to get a well exposed city scape.

 

[Northwood Mediaworks]

LOL I have watched countless color grading vids on YouTube. I can only use Lumafusion on iPad. I haven’t yet found LUT that works great for this kind of cityscape. I do want to differentiate myself from the standard DJI normal look. I mean if anyone of you have a great LUT to recommend to me for cityscape, it’d be much appreciated.

Ah, sorry about that... my iPad intuition was off this morning, no clue that's where you are struggling.... And nope, I did not like the cityscape colors you show in your first post. Looks like there are lots of free luts out there... I found this one pretty quick.... Free LUT Pack for LumaFusion

 

[Dave Maine]

As already mentioned, this is very unpleasant and unnatural looking. What effect are you looking for? The goal of a LUT is to achieve some sort of look. You need to decide what look you are after. Also, most LUTs are designed to be used after a good base grade is already been applied. Using a lut on a poorly shot uncorrected original will never give you the desired effect.