jcs Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 Anyone using the ImpulZ 3D LUTs with the GH4? Apparently compatible with the GH4's Cinelike-D, however Neumann states colors are hard to work with on the GH4 (I don't use Cinelike-D very often: mostly use Natural). More info here: http://www.vision-color.com/impulz/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 I've been using it with the G6, it's a lot of fun so far. I'll try to post some tests in a day or two. Daniel Acuña 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Hughes Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 I'm excited to try to this out. I love VisionColor's camera profiles, so I can't wait to see how they play together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inazuma Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Are these tools meant to be used for general color grading? Because NoFilmSchool says really LUTs are supposed to be used at the final stage to make up a difference between monitor colour and film print Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Are these tools meant to be used for general color grading? Because NoFilmSchool says really LUTs are supposed to be used at the final stage to make up a difference between monitor colour and film print That was originally what film LUTs were designed for. But who distributes on film nowadays? I think the ImpulZ LUTs are definitely meant to be part of a colour grading workflow, and not a substitute for grading. Some of them are very subtle. They're a lot of fun. I blog a bit about it here: http://marginaliafilm.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/using-impulz-luts-to-grade-hdslr-footage/ And here's my test on vimeo, only 720p I'm afraid: The generic Rec.709 LUTs work really well with the G6 footage. If GH4 users aren't keen on the Cinelike D profile they could shoot with a natural profile and try the Rec.709 LUTs rather than the GH4 specific ones. Right, time to watch Mexico v Cameroon Nick Hughes, Inazuma and jcs 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonpais Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Are these tools meant to be used for general color grading? Because NoFilmSchool says really LUTs are supposed to be used at the final stage to make up a difference between monitor colour and film print Haven't you tried using LUTs in your workflow yet? Then I would suggest looking at some other websites by directors and colorists who do, including those of Matthew Scott, Frank Glencairn and Oliver Peters. You can also listen to the podcast of the 'Coloristas'. Seeing IS believing. If you enjoy color grading, you might bookmark them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonpais Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 That was originally what film LUTs were designed for. But who distributes on film nowadays? I think the ImpulZ LUTs are definitely meant to be part of a colour grading workflow, and not a substitute for grading. Some of them are very subtle. They're a lot of fun. I blog a bit about it here: And here's my test on vimeo, only 720p I'm afraid: The generic Rec.709 LUTs work really well with the G6 footage. If GH4 users aren't keen on the Cinelike D profile they could shoot with a natural profile and try the Rec.709 LUTs rather than the GH4 specific ones. Right, time to watch Mexico v Cameroon First of all, very nice blog, Yojimbo. Hope you keep up the good work! While I haven't tried 'nesting', I still find the results I get using LUTs in FCPX far preferable to those without. I've been using LUT Utility and Osiris LUTs, and there is no question in my mind that they help produce a more pleasing tonality. The LUT Utility and Osiris package is also very affordable, compared to say, Film Convert. The problem I'm running up against is that even with my 2013 iMac, 16GB doesn't seem to cut it for LUTs: but even when just adding subtitles, it dies on me. I'm beginning to wonder whether there is something wrong with my computer, because even editing with my 8GB rMBP, I never got a message saying I was out of app memory after only rendering a couple minutes' worth of files. hmmmm... So, anyone serious about color grading should first off make sure they have enough RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Hughes Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 I would think that using the LUTs in Resolve would allow you to get a little more juice than using them in FCPX. As much as I love the performance of Final Cut, it just doesn't play too nicely with plugins yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcs Posted June 13, 2014 Author Share Posted June 13, 2014 Nice post Yojimbo! jonpais- LUT's are pretty small, and unless there's a bug, shouldn't use up much RAM. If implemented on the GPU, a LUT (including 3D) should be very fast. If running on the CPU, a 3D LUT will be a lot slower (due to trilinear or tricubic interpolation). A decent graphics card / GPU is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inazuma Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Adobe has quite a few LUTs built in. Are these packs really worth using over them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcs Posted June 14, 2014 Author Share Posted June 14, 2014 My favorite film stock is Eastman EXR 100T 5248- if there was a tool or toolchain that could replicate that well, it would be worth it to me. 5248 is in AE via Color Finesse, but didn't do much when I tested it. IIRC 5219 is included in ImpulZ, as are a few other interesting film stocks. Are they worth it? Yes, if the 3D LUT is done well so that nothing weird/strange happens. I wrote some software tools a few years ago to create 3D LUTs and found that it was super important to be able to visualize what was going on with the 3D cube otherwise getting good general results was tricky. ImpulZ has a few teal & orange 3D LUTs which are popular, and might take a while to set up from scratch. Adobe CC has SpeedGrade which allows creating 3D LUTs for the Lumetri effect in Premiere: might be worth trying to create 3D LUTs from scratch first, then if too time consuming consider purchasing 3D LUTs (ImpulZ, OSIRIS, Filmconvert, etc.). http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/lumetri-create-custom-looks-in-premiere-speedgrade/ 3D LUTs differ from 1D LUTs in that you can map one color to another in a smooth way (and map many colors to other colors). A 1D LUT typically onlys adjust brightness/luma (though 3 1-D LUTs can control RGB individually, however color remapping isn't possible without a 3D LUT). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 First of all, very nice blog, Yojimbo. Hope you keep up the good work! While I haven't tried 'nesting', I still find the results I get using LUTs in FCPX far preferable to those without. I've been using LUT Utility and Osiris LUTs, and there is no question in my mind that they help produce a more pleasing tonality. The LUT Utility and Osiris package is also very affordable, compared to say, Film Convert. The problem I'm running up against is that even with my 2013 iMac, 16GB doesn't seem to cut it for LUTs: but even when just adding subtitles, it dies on me. I'm beginning to wonder whether there is something wrong with my computer, because even editing with my 8GB rMBP, I never got a message saying I was out of app memory after only rendering a couple minutes' worth of files. hmmmm... So, anyone serious about color grading should first off make sure they have enough RAM. Yeah the performance issue is interesting. For the "Walking Home" clip above, my machine did slow down to a crawl by the end of the editing. I had a Neat Video denoise at the top of the effects slot (but presumably that's just a one-off render isn't it? It doesn't continue to calculate the denoising in real time, I would have thought?), a little bit of stabilization (also a one-off render) occasionally a pre-correction, then the LUT, then a secondary correction, then the titles. It got really slow with the titles. But in another sequence I've been working with, which is just an edit, a bit of stabilization, LUT, and then a light grade, the performance hasn't really been affected. I've never had the "not enough app memory" error though. And I edited it on a 4GB MacBook Air, which is just good enough I think for this kind of grade on 1080p H.264. And yes, particularly if you compare it to the all-plugins $595 version of Film Convert, it's good value. Adobe has quite a few LUTs built in. Are these packs really worth using over them? I don't have any of the Adobe LUTs, but I was experimenting with the ones that come bundled with DaVinci Resolve, as well as ones posted in various places, eg: http://juanmelara.com.au/print-film-emulation-luts-for-download/ I found them very tricky to use with Rec 709 footage. They all seem to expect logarithmic colour. The result was a very high contrast image, with highlights and shadows blown and crushed. You needed a severe, "unnatural" grade (ie one you would never normally do) before the LUT, lifting the gamma and crushing the contrast, trying to create something that looks like log footage. You couldn't just place them over a grade you were working on to see what they looked like for instance. With ImpulZ, the output, in terms of the contrast, the range of values, is predictable. In the pro version each LUT has three output options. So far I've just used the "film contrast" output, which seems to give values between 5-95% (ie it never outputs values in the superblacks or superwhites) and without the clipping issues I was getting with other LUTs. If you need it slightly punchier you can do a secondary correction to push the shadows down and the highlights up 4% or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudopera Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Just found a way to use an adjustment layer in FCPX, used it with VisionColor LUT-s and renders much faster this way. Also you can make your primary corrections directly on the clip and put LUT on the layer. Here is the link for the custom made adjustment layer: http://www.rippletraining.com/using-the-adjustment-layer-title-in-final-cut-pro-x.html Really like these ImpulZ LUT-s by the way utsira 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Just found a way to use an adjustment layer in FCPX, used it with VisionColor LUT-s and renders much faster this way. Also you can make your primary corrections directly on the clip and put LUT on the layer. Here is the link for the custom made adjustment layer: http://www.rippletraining.com/using-the-adjustment-layer-title-in-final-cut-pro-x.html Really like these ImpulZ LUT-s by the way Sudopera, that's an awesome tip. I hadn't heard of the RT adjustment layer, thanks for that. One major advantage that your method has over my idea of using compound clips, is that while you are doing the pre-LUT colour grade, in the Viewer you can see the effects of your grade after the LUT has been applied. When you're inside a compound clip, the Viewer only shows the results of that layer, and you have to exit the clip to see how the primary grade looks after it has been through the LUT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonpais Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 I've been using the adjustment layer that comes with the LUT Utility + Osiris package over at CGC when I have many small clips side-by-side. For comparing the results of different LUTs on a clip, I find audition in FCPX an excellent tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudopera Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Sudopera, that's an awesome tip. I hadn't heard of the RT adjustment layer, thanks for that. One major advantage that your method has over my idea of using compound clips, is that while you are doing the pre-LUT colour grade, in the Viewer you can see the effects of your grade after the LUT has been applied. When you're inside a compound clip, the Viewer only shows the results of that layer, and you have to exit the clip to see how the primary grade looks after it has been through the LUT. I saw your post earlier and thought maybe there is some way to have an adjustment layer in fcp. Then I googled it and here it is, great stuff :) utsira 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonpais Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 For those interested in color grading, I neglected to include a link to Juan Melara's excellent blog: http://juanmelara.com.au/kodak-2393-lut-alex-montoya-real-world-example/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 I've been using the adjustment layer that comes with the LUT Utility + Osiris package over at CGC when I have many small clips side-by-side. For comparing the results of different LUTs on a clip, I find audition in FCPX an excellent tool. Oh OK, the LUT Utility + ImpulZ bundle doesn't come with an adjustment layer... they should really add that to the ImpulZ bundles too. I must admit, I still haven't tried FCPX's audition tool.... maybe that's why you need 16GB of ram :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonpais Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 Oh OK, the LUT Utility + ImpulZ bundle doesn't come with an adjustment layer... they should really add that to the ImpulZ bundles too. I must admit, I still haven't tried FCPX's audition tool.... maybe that's why you need 16GB of ram :) Haha. In FCP, just select the clip and type the shortcut Command - shift - Y. Now your clip will have a tiny triangle in the upper left corner. Click on it and you will now see two versions of your clip. You can hit 'add' and create as many versions as you like. To see how different LUTs or effects appear, just drag them from the effects pane into the audition window. Now that I've used it, I couldn't do without it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utsira Posted June 14, 2014 Share Posted June 14, 2014 More LUT fun, this time with the E-M5. This is almost all Tetrachrome 400. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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