ImpulZ Film Emulation 3D LUTs with the GH4?

[sudopera]

I've played a bit with ImpulZ and Jacob Nielsen's GH4 footage, small corrections on the clips, VisionColor grain on top set to overlay(10% opacity) and Kodak Vision3 5219 FC LUT(GH4 CinelikeD profile) on the RT adjustment layer. Here is the link for the ProRes 422HQ file download: https://copy.com/4P2WKLyAXo7U

[Inazuma]

Thanks for the advise guys :) Just bought the Basic edition and it works a treat. Bringing out colour I didn't even think was captured.

[sudopera]

Thanks for the advise guys :) Just bought the Basic edition and it works a treat. Bringing out colour I didn't even think was captured.

Delboy used to say "He who dares, wins", over here we could say "He who shares, wins" :)

[utsira]

What do people think about vision color's recommended workflow for creating a digital negative?

 

http://www.vision-color.com/digital-negative/

 

they recommend always denoising the chroma, even if it appears noise-free, to "blend pixel values together". I'm a little sceptical as to whether this is necessary, if the footage looks noise-free. 

 

I seem to remember Stu Maschwitz recommending something similar in the DV Rebel's Guide.

[Nikkor]

My first look at them make me think that they aren't really going for a good emulation but to some specific look. The ektar 100 doesn't look anything close to the ektar 100 I know,I tested it with ml raw footage and a d800.

[jgharding]

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?)

 

Neat Video is brutally intensive and yes is trying to do it realtime unless you render the red sections in the timeline.

 

I switch it off until final render, I thik that'll solve your problem.

[sudopera]

Some more info on ImpulZ LUT-s

http://blog.sherifmokbel.com/?p=220

 

[utsira]

My first look at them make me think that they aren't really going for a good emulation but to some specific look. The ektar 100 doesn't look anything close to the ektar 100 I know,I tested it with ml raw footage and a d800.

The ektar 100 is my least favourite of the LUTs. With Rec.709 on G6 footage, it only seems to respond to green, and desaturates everything else.

[AaronChicago]

I downloaded these LUTs and they're not nearly as impressive as Film Convert's customization. The Osiris LUTs are cool b/c they're stylized.

[utsira]

Some more info on ImpulZ LUT-s

http://blog.sherifmokbel.com/?p=220

 

Some really interesting analysis here. Particular the image comparing with and w/o NR. Personally I wasn't too keen on the look of the Cinelike D footage, it seems too low-contrast. I wonder if that's partly why he's seeing highlight roll-off banding and colour macro-blocking.

[Inazuma]

Some more info on ImpulZ LUT-s

http://blog.sherifmokbel.com/?p=220

 

I've just seen some of your other work and am HIGHLY impressed! You have a terrific sense of colour, framing and all that jazz. Can you tell me what lenses you use? Especially for things like

[sudopera]

I've just seen some of your other work and am HIGHLY impressed! You have a terrific sense of colour, framing and all that jazz. Can you tell me what lenses you use? Especially for things like

>this and

[jonpais]

@sudopera very nice clips and nice design too. A pretty talented guy, that Sherif Mokbel. I already have several packages of LUTs, but I may pick these up too sometime. I tried his method with Osiris Jugo, that is, denoising with Neat Video before applying the LUT and adding some grain afterward, and got very good results. But when I tried uploading to YouTube to share, the whole clip was dark and reddish looking. I may try again this afternoon. He also confirmed what I'd already suspected - that LUTS can introduce banding: I'd already seen it in the forehead of one of the musicians in my latest video. I was hoping that adding a bit of grain would help, but not at all.

[jcs]

@jonpais- perhaps try adding noise before the LUTs.

[jonpais]

@jcs but... Sherif says if clips aren't denoised before applying LUT, you can get macroblocking and colored noise (actually, I've been shooting with NR at lowest setting and not bothering with Neat Video, and I never noticed these defects when using LUTs- not to say they weren't there), but it's the banding that annoys me. So - add noise first - how? Or are you pulling my leg?

[sudopera]

@sudopera very nice clips and nice design too. A pretty talented guy, that Sherif Mokbel. I already have several packages of LUTs, but I may pick these up too sometime. I tried his method with Osiris Jugo, that is, denoising with Neat Video before applying the LUT and adding some grain afterward, and got very good results. But when I tried uploading to YouTube to share, the whole clip was dark and reddish looking. I may try again this afternoon. He also confirmed what I'd already suspected - that LUTS can introduce banding: I'd already seen it in the forehead of one of the musicians in my latest video. I was hoping that adding a bit of grain would help, but not at all.

I saw no issues with Jacob Nielsen's 10bit footage, only thing that I noticed is that all the film stocks (didn't try Lomo stocks, fcp crashes) except Kodak Vision3 5219 made the lips and cheeks of the girls in Jacob Nielsen's footage look dark brownish red, but in reality the color is pinkish. Kodak 5219 looks nice to me, colors are right and the change is subtle but footage loses some of that digital look, I think it's a good starting point to my grade. I don't own a GH4 so can't test possible banding issues.

[jonpais]

@sudopera I'm using a GH3, but Sherif points out the banding problem in his video, though it is slight and in the background, not in the talent's face :)

[sudopera]

@jcs but... Sherif says if clips aren't denoised before applying LUT, you can get macroblocking and colored noise (actually, I've been shooting with NR at lowest setting and not bothering with Neat Video, and I never noticed these defects when using LUTs- not to say they weren't there), but it's the banding that annoys me. So - add noise first - how? Or are you pulling my leg?

Maybe you could try to denoise, then apply grain directly to clip and put LUT on the adjustment layer above the clip.

[jonpais]

Maybe you could try to denoise, then apply grain directly to clip and put LUT on the adjustment layer above the clip.

Okay, but whether I add grain before or after the LUT, how do I know what FCPX is doing, since there are no nodes, I don't know what it's prioritizing :( And is there a difference between applying the LUT to an adjustment layer rather than directly over the clip? I thought adjustment layers were just for convenience - you know, to apply the same look to a bunch of clips at one time rather than individually.

[sudopera]

Okay, but whether I add grain before or after the LUT, how do I know what FCPX is doing, since there are no nodes, I don't know what it's prioritizing! And is there a difference between applying the LUT to an adjustment layer rather than directly over the clip? I thought adjustment layers were just for convenience - you know, to apply the same look to a bunch of clips at one time rather than individually.

As I understood, if you want to color correct footage before you apply the LUT, you have to put it on the adjustment layer because in fcp effects applied directly to clip always have priority over color board so RT adjustment layer is a workaround for that. If you use scanned grain as a separate clip above your main footage and put LUT above those two clips on the adjustment layer, then I think LUT is the last thing that affects the image.