LUT Loader crashing my FCPX

[Simon Srečković]

Hello! Does anyone else experienced something like that? I purchased LUT Loader from pixelfilmstudios.com and when I install the loader it crashes my FCPX when I deleted it worked again. How can I fix this or there is any other way to use LUTs?

Thank you!

[Axel]

I never had LUT Loader but LUT Utility. Hadn't installed any of them on 10.3 yet, because I became aware that luts are not the right approach if you want the best results. With FCP X, you have many options to group clips and to batch-apply multiple "layers" of corrections on them using tags, combined effects presets and adjustment layers. Now with the new easy way to disable attributes it has become even better. Luts are too crude.

But anyway, since LUTloader is free, I installed it just now on Sierra (clean install) with FCP X 10.3 (clean install) . The installation guide says that Sierra only allows manual installation of the plugin. No problem, I always do that anyway. Nothing crashes if I apply it to a clip, but nothing happens either. This is a crop of the instructions jpeg delivered in the download folder:

... and this is how it looks in 10.3:

I can't load luts ...

Maybe since it became freeware, they stopped adaptation to newer FCP X versions, practically EOL. Maybe you installed OSX / MacOS another way. Color Finale, which has a 7 day trial with full functionality (perhaps even Color Finale Pro, superior because of ACES) includes LUT Utility. You can download that and see if it crashes. If that's the case, I recommend a clean install.

EDIT: Lut Utility still is available as stand-alone version for $29, and it also still has a free trial, here.

And: I just received a newsletter from CGC, that on Black Friday every CGC software gets a 40% discount. A coupon will be sent to all subscribers. So hurry to register and download a trial!

[Simon Srečković]

Thank for your answer, "because I became aware that luts are not the right approach if you want the best results" what do you recommend? Learning the skill "manually" ?

5 hours ago, Axel said:

I never had LUT Loader but LUT Utility. Hadn't installed any of them on 10.3 yet, because I became aware that luts are not the right approach if you want the best results. With FCP X, you have many options to group clips and to batch-apply multiple "layers" of corrections on them using tags, combined effects presets and adjustment layers. Now with the new easy way to disable attributes it has become even better. Luts are too crude.

But anyway, since LUTloader is free, I installed it just now on Sierra (clean install) with FCP X 10.3 (clean install) . The installation guide says that Sierra only allows manual installation of the plugin. No problem, I always do that anyway. Nothing crashes if I apply it to a clip, but nothing happens either. This is a crop of the instructions jpeg delivered in the download folder:

... and this is how it looks in 10.3:

I can't load luts ...

Maybe since it became freeware, they stopped adaptation to newer FCP X versions, practically EOL. Maybe you installed OSX / MacOS another way. Color Finale, which has a 7 day trial with full functionality (perhaps even Color Finale Pro, superior because of ACES) includes LUT Utility. You can download that and see if it crashes. If that's the case, I recommend a clean install.

EDIT: Lut Utility still is available as stand-alone version for $29, and it also still has a free trial, here.

And: I just received a newsletter from CGC, that on Black Friday every CGC software gets a 40% discount. A coupon will be sent to all subscribers. So hurry to register and download a trial!

 

[Andrew Reid]

It is the most RIDICULOUS thing that Apple's flagship NLE doesn't have LUT support built in.

If you're going to use the same LUT on every clip I recommend EditReady to apply the LUT during transcoding to ProRes. It will make your edit a lot smoother too than editing the camera files direct.

[Axel]

2 hours ago, Simon Srečković said:

Thank for your answer, "because I became aware that luts are not the right approach if you want the best results" what do you recommend? Learning the skill "manually" ?

 A LUT can be used for roughly two different purposes, one of them is applying a look. No one who really concerned himself with CC would do that. I know some will contradict me here. I am interested to hear their arguments. The second purpose is to translate an image to another color space (i.e. RGB to CMYK), resp. "normalize" a log recording to, say, rec_709, the usual procedure nowadays. Because the table has only a limited number of sample points, the result is merely an approximation. There are many thousand rounding errors. The transformation is very lossy.

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

If you're going to use the same LUT on every clip I recommend EditReady to apply the LUT during transcoding to ProRes. It will make your edit a lot smoother too than editing the camera files direct.

That's what is called generation loss. If you recorded flat to capture more shadows and highlights, these values are gone for good after the LUT eliminated them. You could better have shot in 709 from the start, because then you had more original data.

FCP X has some rudimentary log-normalizing LUTs built in (>info >settings):

.. but even you shot with, say, C-Log, you shouldn't use them. They always degrade the DR and colors, because the essential order of operations can't be changed. If you have a stack of corrections and effects (a 'pipeline'), they are on top, and everything you tried to preserve is lost. A good way to deal with LUTs (if you have to) is to apply them to an adjustment layer underneath which you can change the original video independently. Or, of course, use LUT Utility, because it is an effect, has an amount-slider and can be applied downstream. There are few objections anyone could raise against this. Part of the grading process is wysiwyg, and you are taking away unwanted things step by step and can go back any time, like with nodes in Resolve.

As mentioned before, a more precise way of translating colors than LUTs would be ACES. To be honest, I have no personal experiences with this yet.

Though FCP X computes with 32-bit floating point accuracy, it's tools for color grading aren't too precise (and before Andrew chimes in, the ones in the wonderful Lumetri panel - no irony - aren't either). They are enough for getting fast and good results. In Resolve (remember: it's free!) you can set the boarders for what is considered shadows, midtones and highlights (color wheels >log) and how smooth the 'gradient' is. Have specialized tools to saturate very specific color ranges, change their color, their luma, the brightness-saturation-ratio, what have you. You have a channel mixer. And so on. 

LUTs are mere crooks.

 

 

 

[benymypony]

A good free LUT loader plugin for FCPX : https://www.motionvfx.com/mplugs-107.html

[freeman]

I've had problems with pixel films Lut loader as well. Even with the older fcpx it was a bit finicky however now with 10.3 I had to uninstall and reinstall the Lut loader before it began to work. Even now when I select a Lut from a folder on my desktop, no changes appear to the footage. I have to select the lut a second time, and sometimes even adjust the "amount" slider until I see the Lut applied.

 

When the thing does end up working the way I usually grade over multiple clips is by using a title (with no text) over all the footage I want a Lut applied to. The title acts as an adjustment layer. So you drag the Lut loader onto the title instead of the clip, then everything under that title gets the Lut applied.

[Axel]

1 hour ago, freeman said:

When the thing does end up working the way I usually grade over multiple clips is by using a title (with no text) over all the footage I want a Lut applied to. The title acts as an adjustment layer. So you drag the Lut loader onto the title instead of the clip, then everything under that title gets the Lut applied.

Best way to actually see what's going on. You instantly see the difference, because the LUT doesn't cut off highlights. 

My proposal for a LUT-alternative:

If you'd rather avoid a Resolve roundtrip, make primary and secondary corrections on more than one* color instance, (I usually have three to five, as many as I'd have serial or parallel nodes in Resolve, apply more funky look effects if you want to create a better look-LUT) save them together as moonlight shadows and apply moonlight shadows to every clip that fits. You can easily group the clips with a corresponding tag moonlight shadows and select them as group from the timeline index (start typing moon..., then hit cmd + a to select them all). Each "node" of the stack stays individually editable in the info tab. Best of all: the new super LUT now lives in the effect browser. By selecting a new clip in the timeline and skimming over the moonlight shadow icon, you see an instant preview of it, fullscreen, realtime, with no need to apply the effect in the first place. How is that? LUTloader? Come on ...

*more than one because then you can adjust things with more precision.

[Asmundma]

On 11/23/2016 at 6:39 PM, Andrew Reid said:

It is the most RIDICULOUS thing that Apple's flagship NLE doesn't have LUT support built in.

If you're going to use the same LUT on every clip I recommend EditReady to apply the LUT during transcoding to ProRes. It will make your edit a lot smoother too than editing the camera files direct.

If you shoot Sony its stupid to transcode to ProRes (at least on MAC using FCPX) . It just increases the CPU usage when running and edting the media. Everybody seems to think is necessary that transcode to ProRes, but its not (I think is due to hardware support of H264). Even with 1dx2 4k50p with MPEG its no value. XVAC runs with 8-9% CPU usage on my Mac, ProRes with 35% (4k footage), so you are better off not transcode. If you record in ProRes you get a more leverage in sharpness 100MB vs 500MB/sec and 4:2:2 but is hard to see any difference w.r.t. colours. 

By the way there is support for the standard luts, like Canon, Arri, Sony Slog in FCPX. (via the inspector like shown above)

I highly recommend Colour Finale for colour grading, you get much of Resolve functionality inside FCPX. With Slice X you can get tracking as well and it can be combined with Colour Finale. Lasted version support grouping of clip - enabling to copy / propagate grades between clips. Or use and adjustment layer above all clips to create a look/grade to the whole or part of the movie. 

And - EditReady is not the best application - Apple's Compressor is better. 

[Simon Srečković]

On 11/23/2016 at 8:36 PM, benymypony said:

A good free LUT loader plugin for FCPX : https://www.motionvfx.com/mplugs-107.html

I tried this and it works, thank you very much