With the introduction of the Color Management matchbox in the image node for Flame 2022, I’m very excited to see that the door is open to experimenting with a few things, one of which involving the incorporation of creative LUTs into Flame’s grading / selective environment.
The big question on my mind now is where to find some good, reliable creative or film emulation LUTs.
Does anyone know of any libraries of LUTs? Either free or paid?
The first thing that comes to mind (and also my pipe-dream) is the Arri Look Library. I happen to have inside information that it is indeed available straight out of the gate in Baselight, but a little poking around on Arri’s website has told me that any ol’ user can’t just download their Look Library. I think you get access to their Look Library when you use their cameras, but I’m guessing that’s mostly for establishing a look on set. You can also use their metadata extraction tool to extract the LUT someone used during a shoot, but this isn’t exactly what I’m looking for–I’m looking for a big ol’ library of Arri looks to choose from, not just one or two.
I think you’re right in some cases, Quinn, so I don’t think it’s irrational at all. I’ve also heard that using certain LUTs can absolutely kill your image quality, but I’d like to believe that is a result of either a poorly made LUT or using the LUT incorrectly based on the color management it’s expecting. I’ll have to attempt to wrap my head around the way Flame is handling this to understand the whole process better, but if it’s working the way that I think it should be working, and if I find the right LUTs, I think I can do it in a way that doesn’t compromise image quality.
The way this concept was described to me by several Baselight artists is that depending on the LUT and the color management pipeline you have set up, you can use certain LUTs as a non-destructive jumping off point for your grade. If I remember correctly, for the “math to be right” certain LUTs are expecting log whereas certain LUTs are expecting Rec.709, so you would need to be sure to get that part right, but after that, so long as things are good under the hood, I think it should work nicely.
And if it doesn’t currently work this way, you bet I’ll be doing as much testing + Flame feedback as I can to try to improve this cool new feature!
LUT is a tool. Same as color curves or lift/gamma/gain or other color tool. When using right it will do right this. If using wrong your result may vary. They have bad reputation now, mostly to overused by guys who doesn`t understand how it works and how should be used.
Maybe, I should talk with Andy about Logik Live episode dedicated to lut usage.
ARRI Lool library is a part of ARRI color workflow. It was distributed with Baselight (at least it was the case some time ago) and still can be downloaded from Filmlight support sections in Baselight lut format. Some time ago I ported it to Resolve lut format that should work with Flame. You can download my package here. Lets hope I am not violating any license here, but I didn`t find any licensing agreement on Baselight site about this package
Package consist from two types of LUTs - color transforms to rec709/P3D60/two type of HDR and Look LIbrary. All this LUTs expect AlexaWideGamut/LogC material on the input, use Flame Color Management node to convert your sources color spaces to it before use.
Val, you are amazing. Your response here was my best-case scenario for my post in the first place, and you were absolutely correct on all accounts. Firstly, I didn’t think to look at Baselight’s site for that Look Library, so wow that’s awesome that it is indeed available for download. And secondly, you’re right that it needed to be converted, I guess Flame can’t read .cub files but can read .cube files, so thanks for doing that.
Just tested most of these with the new Color Management node in Image and they work like a charm.
Thanks so much Val, this is exactly, EXACTLY what I was looking for.
I use LUTS quite a bit as a starting point and i have a number of sets from varying sources. In particular though, Sony just released a set in collaboration with Technicolor, these looks were created by a number of “feature” colorists for the Venice camera. However the LUTS will work across some of the other cinema(ish) style cameras in the Sony line up like the legacy Fs7 and the new FX line released this year which are based on the Venice…Fx3, Fx6 & Fx9
There are a fair amount of looks in the set and i only have use for a handful of them, but being an Fx9 owner…gives me a good starting point depending on the look i want.
So far in this thread we have the Arri Look Library courtesy of Baselight’s download page for all things Alexa Log C Wide Gamut. We also now have some Technicolor looks for the Sony Venice cameras (that I assume work with other Sony cameras but I think that’ll need some testing).
With this in mind I just found the RED equivalent in the form of their Creative LUT Kit found here:
Hmmmm…i just did it to make sure. I grabbed the SLog3SGamut3.Cine LUT from Resolve dumped it into a LUT folder i have in Flame Assist, added a CM node, loaded that LUT and applied to a clip.
I stand corrected…sort of. I got the same error trying to load any .cube LUT from Resolve OTHER than the ones in the Sony folder, which are the ones i needed way back when…so i just assumed that all .cube files would work. Guess not.
It`s rec709 D65 Kodak and Fuji film looks from Resolve. If my memory serves me well they expect rec709 gamut/Cineon log curve on input (transform your sources to this before uplying for good results), and produce rec709 gamma 2.4 output.