Pleasing & Neutralising Panasonic LUTs

[Inazuma]

I have created a new set of LUTs for Panasonic cameras. Having spent the last year and a half reviewing footage from my camera (the GX7) and various others, I have become quite familiar with its colour characteristics. In general I do find them very pleasing but in some respects they are quite flawed. And I wish to have pleasing colours without resorting to film emulation.

My new LUTs do the following:

• Fixes the shift of reds to orange
• Gives greens and blues a subtly deeper and more satisfying colour.
• Stops the abrupt shifts of orange to yellow (which is generally what causes the poor skin tone rendition)
• Stops yellow from becoming overpowering.
• Allows film emulation LUTs to be applied without certain colours going mad

 

The set includes two types of LUTs. One is called “Pleasing” and it gives a Canon-like rendition. The other is called “Neutralising” and gives a RAW photo look (ie. very neutral). Within each type, there are several alternatives. “A” is the main one to use, whilst “B” and “C” are offshoots with slight differences.

Each LUT is actually quite subtle in how it changes the image, but its the subtle differences that can change how natural an image looks. The LUTs will also make it easier to apply film emulation LUTs without certain hues going out of control (eg. yellows becoming nuclear).

Download now: Inazumas_Panny_LUTs

A note on camera settings:

Having done a lot of testing of camera profiles, I do believe Standard is the best. Some people recommend Natural but it shifts a lot of colours towards orange, which looks good for grass but is a bit unnatural. It also makes people look orange. Contrast at -5 is good but saturation at -5 is a bad idea if you plan to increase saturation in post anyway. This is because when you increase saturation in post of the 8bit footage, you will get loads of colour noise in the footage.

I also have iDynamic on Low and highlights at -5. I use preset whitebalances with the adjustment dot set to M5 (5 points below the centre).

I don’t have a GH4 so I can’t say how well it will work for CineD footage.

Some images:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Original post here

[Paul Cryer]

Picture profile settings, are the things you mention the only things you've changed from the Standard defaults?

[Inazuma]

Picture profile settings, are the things you mention the only things you've changed from the Standard defaults?

​I also put Sharpness, NR and usually Contrast at -5.

BTW silly me forgot to mention the main feature of these LUTs is that it evens out skintones and puts more red into them. What I mean by "evens out" is that it fixes the blotchiness whereby some areas of skin look natural and then other parts abruptly become too yellow or orange. 

[MattH]

Have you seen the LOG test footage from the camera store's "Panasonic GH4 Anamorphic Firmware Field Test " Video?

 

From 5:53 the footage (which was filmed with the Log test firmware) shows horrible ugly greeny yellowy areas of colour in the shadow areas of people's skin.  I wondered if they had messed up the grade,  But I took a grab of the ungraded footage and it apears the greeny yellow is there to start with.  Is it the sensor that's doing this? The panasonic colour science? How could someone think this looks good?  Do you think your luts would solve this issue?

[Zak Forsman]

that green cast in the shadows looks like an effect of the light in the room to me. if you look at the ceiling behind them, there are some fluorescent lights that are greenish.  so anywhere that their own light set up (probably 5600k) isn't hitting them strong, essentially has a greenish fill light on it -- shadow areas on their clothing and skin, and the entire store behind them has the green cast.

[MattH]

Yeah, that could be it. Hopefully.

[AaronChicago]

No offense to the YouTube author above, but why is Panasonic giving him a preview of LOG? The 2 videos that I saw from him were average to poor in quality.

[Don Kotlos]

No offense to the YouTube author above, but why is Panasonic giving him a preview of LOG? The 2 videos that I saw from him were average to poor in quality.

People complain for the skin colors of A7s but the skin colors with vlog of gh4 looks like crap compared to the A7s.

[MattH]

Dave Dugdales face looks all green in the next video shot with vlog as well.

[Inazuma]

^Which video?

[fuzzynormal]

Thanks.  I'm getting close to doing the online for my documentary.  I'll dabble with your settings and see how they play.

[MattH]

^Which video?

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPvaLrrpFrk

[MattH]

​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPvaLrrpFrk

​Sorry that was s-log not v-log.

[Zak Forsman]

again, i don't think this is a color science issue. look where they are standing. by noting the nearby background you can infer that the grass they are standing on is brightly light by the sun. all the green you see is presumably light bouncing up at them. look at the underside of their arms, etc.

[MattH]

again, i don't think this is a color science issue. look where they are standing. by noting the nearby background you can infer that the grass they are standing on is brightly light by the sun. all the green you see is presumably light bouncing up at them. look at the underside of their arms, etc.

​So how is this avoided then besides not shooting on grass?  Is every other camera automatically compensating for the green?

[Zak Forsman]

no, i don't think other cameras are compensating for it. you would see this on any camera. it's light. you *could* use secondaries in post to counter it but that's treating the symptom not dealing with the problem on set. in the first, what we typically would do is replace all the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling fixtures with daylight balanced ones. or in the second case, they could have done what I've seen Tak Fujimoto do and lay down white sheets out of frame so that the light bouncing off the ground becomes a soft neutral fill.

[Inazuma]

I think the A7S slog is more prone to green tints on skin regardless of light bouncing off of grass. Not sure why that is. If someone were to spend time taking side-by-side videos with an A7s and Canon, you might eventually be able to create a LUT that corrects the colour problems. 

I think the GH4 v-log video is also suffering from a similar problem. Zak's explanation about the lights is nice but it doesn't explain why the front of Chris's face has a blotchy greeness to it despite the daylight balanced frontal light. Still I think it's too early to make judgements and we should wait for more footage.

[Zak Forsman]

Heh-heh... not to belabor it, but i think the front of his face is more susceptible to the greenish fluorescent light overhead because he's facing away from the daylight balanced light they set up frame left.

[sgreszcz]

Hi Seb,  what would the workflow be here for using your LUTs?  Correct image and colours (balance, luminance, contrast) - I typically try to get the skintones correct here using the vectorscope.  Then apply your LUT or do the correction after applying your "pleasing" or "neutralising" LUT?  Then use one of the film-like LUTs like VisionColour or Filmconvert and do any final correction?

Also, how would you recommend building a LUT to match cameras?  You obviously built yours matching your Panasonic to Canon.  I would like to match my Panasonic to my Olympus (or my Olympus to your "pleasing" LUT applied to my Panasonic).  Could you give me an idea of your workflow and how you did it?

Thanks!

[Lintelfilm]

What lens for the 

I have created a new set of LUTs for Panasonic cameras. Having spent the last year and a half reviewing footage from my camera (the GX7) and various others, I have become quite familiar with its colour characteristics. In general I do find them very pleasing but in some respects they are quite flawed. And I wish to have pleasing colours without resorting to film emulation.

My new LUTs do the following:

• Fixes the shift of reds to orange
• Gives greens and blues a subtly deeper and more satisfying colour.
• Stops the abrupt shifts of orange to yellow (which is generally what causes the poor skin tone rendition)
• Stops yellow from becoming overpowering.
• Allows film emulation LUTs to be applied without certain colours going mad

 

The set includes two types of LUTs. One is called “Pleasing” and it gives a Canon-like rendition. The other is called “Neutralising” and gives a RAW photo look (ie. very neutral). Within each type, there are several alternatives. “A” is the main one to use, whilst “B” and “C” are offshoots with slight differences.

Each LUT is actually quite subtle in how it changes the image, but its the subtle differences that can change how natural an image looks. The LUTs will also make it easier to apply film emulation LUTs without certain hues going out of control (eg. yellows becoming nuclear).

Download now: Inazumas_Panny_LUTs

A note on camera settings:

Having done a lot of testing of camera profiles, I do believe Standard is the best. Some people recommend Natural but it shifts a lot of colours towards orange, which looks good for grass but is a bit unnatural. It also makes people look orange. Contrast at -5 is good but saturation at -5 is a bad idea if you plan to increase saturation in post anyway. This is because when you increase saturation in post of the 8bit footage, you will get loads of colour noise in the footage.

I also have iDynamic on Low and highlights at -5. I use preset whitebalances with the adjustment dot set to M5 (5 points below the centre).

I don’t have a GH4 so I can’t say how well it will work for CineD footage.

Some images:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Without LUT:

With LUT:

Original post here

What lens for the shot of the girl wearing hat?