Working with color grading and LUT's

[4wd]

The funny part of all is that I've been working with Photoshop for almost 22 years. But the knowledge I've been gathering ever since cannot be applied to video footage as well. At least not the way I like.

You can make a custom LUT in photoshop from CC2015 on.
Basically, screenshot representative frame(s), import into Photoshop.
Make New adjustment layer (Look Up Table option should be present).
Make basic adjustments and export as LUT.
With practice this takes a couple of minutes to do.

You are mainly limited to contrast, levels, curves and saturation and colour balance - nothing complex like grads. However grads can be applied in other ways.

 

[Oyibo VFX]

The funny part of all is that I've been working with Photoshop for almost 22 years. But the knowledge I've been gathering ever since cannot be applied to video footage as well. At least not the way I like.

When I filmed in D-Log, it also took pictures in D-Log. And I'm a novice in PS but you can work with LUT's and batch processing is quite easy. Worked out fine for me

 

[ed1nh0]

You can make a custom LUT in photoshop from CC2015 on.
Basically, screenshot representative frame(s), import into Photoshop.
Make New adjustment layer (Look Up Table option should be present).
Make basic adjustments and export as LUT.
With practice this takes a couple of minutes to do.

You are mainly limited to contrast, levels, curves and saturation and colour balance - nothing complex like grads. However grads can be applied in other ways.

Thank you sir! I'll try to do that!

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I think I'll just stick to basic color grading. It works fine in FCPX and very detailed in Color Finale. Did a test this afternoon with the GC Falcon DLog to Rec709 and some handy work. Came out exactly the same

 

[darana]

Hi there, these are .cube files that can be used in any LUT loader in FCPX such as Final Cut Pro X FCPX LUT Loader from Pixel Film Studios

I've set up a website with all the info about these ICARUS MAVIC PRO D-LOG LUTS
If you're interested in a test run, send me an email with a short video file and I'll get back to you with a graded version.

Cheers

Thanks Paulo. Just ordered through the site. I'm all of those things you listed above as well, but much newer to the video side, so I know the work that goes into making quality custom profiles! (I'm sure you'd laugh knowingly if you saw my CameraRaw/CameraProfiles folder! ) Anyways, thanks for the work and for making them available - well worth the $$ for the hours saved generating my own custom profiles to start.

 

[littlewings]

Thanks Paulo. Just ordered through the site. I'm all of those things you listed above as well, but much newer to the video side, so I know the work that goes into making quality custom profiles! (I'm sure you'd laugh knowingly if you saw my CameraRaw/CameraProfiles folder! ) Anyways, thanks for the work and for making them available - well worth the $$ for the hours saved generating my own custom profiles to start.

Thank you for your interest!
Yes, calibrating can become an obsession but knowing that I'm helping a community is what keeps me going. More is yet to come!

 

[MassiTX]

Hey there, very interesting subject. I'm actually new to color grading but I see it makes a huge difference when applied. I was thinking to start, probably its good for me to use some LUTs instead of tweaking things manually as I literally know nothing about those parameters. Any suggestion? I was more interested in CINLIKE-D than DLOG as I watched some videos. Any recommendation on how/where to start is very appreciated.

 

[Riseaknight]

Has anyone tried the griffin LUT from ground control?

 

[SteelFlyer]

The funny part of all is that I've been working with Photoshop for almost 22 years. But the knowledge I've been gathering ever since cannot be applied to video footage as well. At least not the way I like.

I feel your pain. With video files, there is so much less information to work with than with a typical RAW file in Photoshop or LR that it is much harder to get the results you're used to. You just can't push and pull the image nearly as much without it going south quickly. You have to really focus on nailing exposure when shooting to give yourself even a fighting chance.

 

[ed1nh0]

I feel your pain. With video files, there is so much less information to work with than with a typical RAW file in Photoshop or LR that it is much harder to get the results you're used to. You just can't push and pull the image nearly as much without it going south quickly. You have to really focus on nailing exposure when shooting to give yourself even a fighting chance.

Agree!
I've been watching a bunch of videos and tutorials. I'm trying to mess with histograms and the weird color scopes.
The point is, you don't take a photo with so flat settings. You just try to take its best no matter the format (RAW or JPEG).
With videos seems like everything need to be flat, wiped out of color and contrast, so you can bring all them up in post.
But my knowledge about things like white balance, color casting, brightness, contrast and everything else seems limited, insufficient when using the tools for color grading a video. That's why I always end up with some (free) LUT. But, even so, the result is not always what I want.
Sooner or later I'll get there.

 

[Oyibo VFX]

Hey there, very interesting subject. I'm actually new to color grading but I see it makes a huge difference when applied. I was thinking to start, probably its good for me to use some LUTs instead of tweaking things manually as I literally know nothing about those parameters. Any suggestion? I was more interested in CINLIKE-D than DLOG as I watched some videos. Any recommendation on how/where to start is very appreciated.

Check JoeTjoep for Larry Jordan videos. He is the upper god in Color Grading

 

[Plawa]

I don't know if it's something that I'm doing wrong but every single LUT that I tried so far ended up making my footage look like oversaturated overcontrasted crap.. and I made sure to shoot in the exact settings the author of the LUT specified.. I'm using Lumetri in Premiere CC and resolve with pretty much the same results...

I tried bumping the exposure up 1 stop today, it helped a little but I still feel like I'm going to just stick to landspace, fixed WB and save myself the hassle of trying to make it perfect when I can get "good enough for youtube" without any of the extra effort.. and that's coming from someone who shoots stills on a fulframe exclusively in raw and will edit the hell out of every single photo even if it goes just on FB..

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I don't know if it's something that I'm doing wrong but every single LUT that I tried so far ended up making my footage look like oversaturated overcontrasted crap.. and I made sure to shoot in the exact settings the author of the LUT specified.. I'm using Lumetri in Premiere CC and resolve with pretty much the same results...

I tried bumping the exposure up 1 stop today, it helped a little but I still feel like I'm going to just stick to landspace, fixed WB and save myself the hassle of trying to make it perfect when I can get "good enough for youtube" without any of the extra effort.. and that's coming from someone who shoots stills on a fulframe exclusively in raw and will edit the **** out of every single photo even if it goes just on FB..

Can you make a snapshot from that footage? I like a clean one and one with your LUT. Please send to [email protected]. Just like to see what went wrong and if I can do something with it.

 

[Plawa]

Sure, I'll can send you the full res if you want, here's what I'm seeing:

Using Mauro's Cine/Color LUT D-LOG for MAVIC PRO/INSPIRE 2/PHANTOM 4/PHANTOM 4 PRO - Mauro's LUT, shot in +1,-1,-1 D-Log .. to me it's just look totally overdone...

 

[4wd]

........oversaturated overcontrasted crap.. .

Are you reducing the intensity after applying it?

 

[Plawa]

Are you reducing the intensity after applying it?

I don't see an option to that in Premiere Pro CC 7.1, Lumetri only has the option to apply a LUT, not to set its intesity.. I can still reduce the contrast/saturation using the standards effects but my understanding was that the LUT should mostly be a one step adjustment..

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I'll have a go tomorrow morning. I think I know what you mean (checking with my iPad and not my Mac)
I'll do some with FCPX and Color Finale and let you know

 

[4wd]

I don't see an option to that in Premiere Pro CC 7.1, Lumetri only has the option to apply a LUT, not to set its intesity.. I can still reduce the contrast/saturation using the standards effects but my understanding was that the LUT should mostly be a one step adjustment..

Use the Creative section to appy the LUT, and you can reduce it.
Most preset LUTs are intended to be used around 50% not 100%

You could also make a dedicated adjutment layer and reduce the opacity, but I find additional adjustent layers make rendering considerably slower.

I make my own LUTs using a frame grab imported to Photoshop, a colour look-up adjustment layerand exported as LUT.
People seem to imagine a LUT is doing something mystical but it's basically just a saved adjustment layer which can be readily repeated to give a 'look'

Several of the free ones available are nice enough though.
Don't forget you can still make further changes with the other settings - in fact it would be unusual if you didn't need to when turning into sun or tilting gimbal.

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I'm just editing some footage right now and I see I have far too much white due to heavy sun background. I'm going to edit with color masks. Next level editing but man oh man... so cool



As you can see, the background over the horizon is over exposed. So I will add a color mask and key frame it so it follows the horizon and feather it to have a nice transition.
I'll post a pic when I'm done so you have a nice idea what you can do. Even without heavy color grading and/or LUT's

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I have cut out a small sample. Not the same shot but here you have more contrast.


Also attached the FCPX screenshot for the Mask Key Framing