Hey everyone! This was a decent chunk of work and my longest video yet. I hope it helps you to focus on what actually matters. :) Oh and I really hope we can move past the misunderstanding of LUTs soon! Enjoy! 🖖
What i dont understand, is that at the beginning of mistake 2, you show both signal chain hierarchies and they look exactly the same. The color wheel that you claim to be affecting the color space transformation wasnt even present. i know im missing something here but analyzing the video i dont know. im trying to learn the process to make vlog look like 16mm so i wanted to know the steps before applying the rec709 lut, but i also want to know do you apply other luts to vlog after the rec709 lut is applied but before it in the signal chain hierarchy?
Its just a matter of whether your adjustments are before the LUT or after. If you use a clean colour space transformation LUT, you can perform all adjustments before the LUT. Even if you want to emulate 16mm film. However, I’d recommend having a look at Dehancer. That’s a Swiss army knife for stuff like this. I know, it’s a chunk of money, but I think it’s worth every penny.
@@iamericlenz i appreciate you answering, although i still dont know exactly what caused your footage to have that issue within the video, but i understand what you were saying about it Now with dehancer is it the same thing, apply before the CST LUT? EIther way man i appreciate it this video helped me a lot conceptualize and understand these concepts, especially dealing with multiple luts for different purposes. Also the graphs! i finally understand the gamma curves
@mavillejones5908 Dehancer handles the CST for you as you can choose your camera and gamma+gamut from the dropdown. The footage in the video - one is overexposed and one is properly exposed. :)
I’m 70 years old and feel like my grandson just explained to me what I should do with the V-Log video shot with my new Lumix Gh9II camera Thank you, Eric. You may bask in the praise of knowing that you actually got through to an old guy who can easily move-on from videos like yours. You make perfect sense and I am grateful for you Cam2Rec CST. Jim in Oregon
I am not in this industry nor is it a hobby of mine. I am a math teacher by trade, but somehow I watched this whole video, and it made me want to dabble in color grading for fun. Thank you.
I had no idea people did manual colour space transformations before watching this video but it's nice knowing exactly why I've been doing things right all along.
The challenge many of us face is that some conversion LUTs are better (more accurate) than others and even the camera manufacture conversion LUTs can be problematic. The problem we then face is determining which conversion LUTs are more accurate.
Its funny how i came for colour grading lesson and understood something about log that I didn't understand in 4 years of calculus. You're a great teacher 🔥
Thanks a lot Eric, I struggled so bad working with Log footage and it turns out that I was always doing my adjustment after the the LUT instead of before. Cheers man!
Thank you, Erik. This is what I have been looking for a long time. It's a lot of information out there about the subject, but you explanation is top of the line. Very educational and informative.
I literally stopped shooting S-Log3 because I could never figure out how to grade it properly. I'm by no means a professional but a hobbyist who has tried really hard to learn about this stuff. I would always do my color space transformation in Davinci as my first node and then tried to hack the clip into something that looked nice and it was SO DIFFICULT. It was so discouraging trying to fight the clip to do what I wanted after watching a tutorial that made it look so easy. I'm sure my footage also wasn't shot perfectly, but still, I put effort into that part of the equation as well, so I know about overexposing LOG on purpose and all that. Yet it was still so exhausting to try and grade my clips. After watching this, I realize my mistake might have been putting the CST node at the start of my node tree instead of at the end. Really excited to open up some old projects and see if this makes a difference! Thanks.
This is why Davinci Resolve node system is easier for people to grasp the importance of hierarchy. That being said, even for novice editors / colorists, you would expect people would be aware of what should be common sense :x
You’re such a great teacher. I was able to understand all the information you delivered to your viewers. As a colorist myself, I really needed this, and it helped me gain a better understanding. Thank you!
Hi Eric. I’ve watched every video you’ve published and I’m here just to say that I’m a huge fan of your work. You make sure everything is explained correctly, not for the algorithm but for the people. Thanks a lot
Thanks for these videos Eric. I am new to FCP & shooting in Log. I was really struggling until I came across your videos & corrected the order of everything. Now correcting exposure & colour grading is a breeze. I am also saving a lot of time & enjoying it more.
Just a hobbyist, more of an audio girl, but I love learning about video too. Recently got a new Sony camera and dared to film in S-Log2. Been a little frustrated with color grading, until this video, and downloading your cam2rec LUTs. I feel like I know what I'm doing more now 😂 and I'm beginning to get the look I actually want. Thank you! You explained so clearly. Thank you for the work you put into this 😊
Brilliant Eric, you have explained very simply the reason that I do what I do. I understood that it ‘had’ to be done but you have pulled the reason apart and explained it thoroughly. Great job 👏🏻 LLAP
You Sir, are a natural educator. This video picked me up where I was, explained the problem/challenge and broke it down in bits, recapping step by step what we learned. I was struggling exactly with what you were describing… resulting in me not trusting LUTs. It’s so simple but it never came to me that it’s just a matter of signal chain order 🙈 …and having good color transform LUT of course.. You made my day! And probably saved me countless hours on future projects! Thank you! My favorite quote was „translating Spanish to German is not poetry“ btw 😂❤️👍🏻 as a German I can say that there is probably going to be much lost in translation on that step in any case :p
Great video, LUTs are handy, especially if you're not trying to do a cinema ready grade for a feature or just need a quick grade for a client. This is super helpful for FCP grading. I think the reason people say to not use LUT's is because in Resolve we use Colour Managed workflows (as you mentioned at the start). Whether or not the method is actually the same under the hood, we have the confidence of knowing we are grading in a wide colour space and gamma such as ACES or DWG/I instead of grading the Cameras Log/Raw or worse in rec709. Some people might question whether theres any point in doing CAMERA LOG ---> COLOUR MANAGED(ACES) ---> OUTPUT (rec.709) but it also means that our grades should transfer to any camera, and will usually 'feel' the same when grading. What I don't like is CAMERA LOG ---> OUTPUT (rec.709) like FCP and PP do. I wish FCP and Premiere just had proper settings for colour management to give confidence in scene referred grading.
Great video. I figured out most of the things you said on my own. But it took me a lot of hunting around and many hours of frustration. And coming from a photography background, this was easier to me than most people. If only I had your video earlier, it would be like a breeze. You are a very good teacher. I will definitely watch all your videos. Although I am not an FCP user, I can learn the concepts. I am an amateur colorist. I work in Premiere Pro, and going to shift to Resolve soon.
wow. this was an amazing video and so well explained. it's always vital to know the fundamentals in anything and i love how you approached it and explained it, grounded in reality
Well done on this, you’ve provided some super clear reasons and explanations that are sure to help many people to understand the process, rather than just learn the steps. 👍
Great video, learned a lot. Haven't connected the dots between math log and foto log before, but make so much sense. And the transformation part about changing the input before the lut is huge. Thank! Simon 🇳🇴
Thank you for this explanation. I have seen explanations from a charity of sources but have never quite grasped the concept You explained it brilliantly.
Great video with a clear explanation, however the video does not mention the importance of using an intermediate color space before transforming to Rec 709 and how the node tree facilitates that. First, use a CST in your first node to take your log footage to a wide color space like Davinci Intermediate. This allows a broader range of color to work with. Do all your work, adjustments, masks etc. in that wide space. The display must be Rec 709 calibrated and the last node on your tree is a CST from Davinci Intermediate to rec 709. If your node tree is not broken, you will see your adjustments displayed in rec709 as you make them and you will benefit from working in a very wide color space to get the best possible results.
I'm very glad TH-cam suggested your channel and found your Cam2Rec CST LUTs. I've just tested them and they are working much better than the official Sony ones. Congrats and thanks so much for the free download! I have one question, if you'd be so kind to answer: I work with 10-bit, 4:2:2 S-log3 footage, should I apply sharpening and film grain BEFORE o AFTER your CST LUT. Thanks in advance!
Awesome, thank you! You can apply both before the LUT, but depending on the tools you use, you might need to put the grain after the LUT. The default should be doing everything before the LUT but if it doesn't work, then put it after the LUT or use a different tool. :)
100% agree. A log curve is a very specific mapping of stops on a logarithmic curve. It's used to fit a large amount of stops within a smaller space. A lut or color transform is an exact reversing of that curve. It's not bad and is 100% exactly what we should have if the camera didn't need to shoot log to capture that much range. Log is basically a kind of image compression. With other forms of image encoding we have to use decoding to perfectly reverse the process. The same is true of log. More data is compressed into a smaller space. We then use a transform for that log format to reverse it perfectly. From that point we can manually make adjustments until we are blue in the face for the creative look. Grading should happen in layers or stages. Not trying to cram the entire process into a one and done step. I feel like many suggested manual grading because it was cool and impressive at one point. It's just wrong and incredibly inefficient to do so. It's not being creative to do it. Its just wasting time and using the completely wrong process to grade material. Creativity comes after the normalizing. A normalizing lut or transform may not look perfect but thats kind of the point. It just normalizes. Then one adds the creativity but they leave the precision pat of the converse not tools designed for that precision. After that point one can go nuts creatively.
@@JimRobinson-colorsI’m not entirely sure that’s true. While luts are pretty dumb the values they contain are floating point numbers and not just a 10bit coded value. By using floating point numbers they can convert to some pretty precise colors in a 32bit float space. Plus the log format and camera clipping points will typically limit what happens past certain points a heck of a lot more than the precision differences on how 32bit float is used. A color of 32.000345 is going to appear as pretty much exactly the same as a color of 32 and that added precision doesn’t really do much at all. I think it only really comes into play if you stretch the daylights out of the material which is much more likely going to fall apart long before a limit of 32bit float precision would. But once you have a video recorded even in raw you have hard coded values in that bit depth. 8bit, 10bit or 12bit. 32bit can help when you stretch out values to create new in between values but it doesn’t magically add more coded values to either end of the video. In the encoded video a 10bit value of 128 for stop -7 and stop -8 are identical in how they were encoded in the file. There are no longer any variations of 128 and 127.5. The damage is done which is why I prefer 12bit raw and hope we get more common 14bit raw video formats someday. It’s all really splitting hairs with 8bit and 10bit video. Clipped values are clipped values no matter what. No math will change that. If a value was not clipped before it likely will not suddenly be clipped with a lut transform. Unless a value in log is in an illegal range that should not be possible with that lut transform. For example over exposed. This is why you make adjustments before those luts so they don’t clip past pure white 100%. I’m not sure if we have ever had any technical confirmation of how the custom out effect is handled in FCP. I use it a lot with custom luts and it seems really flexible and doesn’t fall apart any sooner than just a normal 32bit color adjustment would. Like I said the coded value bit depth is going to affect that ability long before a lut will.
Yep, it's like using a linear profile for your stills raws, when most should start out at a regular contrast curve that better matches the dynamic range of the display which you can then pull more dynamic range into it if you need..
Yes, everyone! If you are in Resolve, use a CST instead. This video was more targeted towards the creators rather than the colourists but the algorithm decided to push it in another direction. 🙈
good video. i learnt this recently through consistent practicing as i like to overexpose clog3. i was able to work on the image before the lut. big difference.
Fantastic work. I'm in the script stage of a similar video but you handled the subject so well I no longer feel the need to complete mine. Like you, I devised analogies to explain the folly of manually working in log space, including languages like German and French. I ultimately decided on using a file compression analogy instead. Treat log footage as a compressed zip file, ie an opaque intermediate file that transports a large amount of information from the camera to your computer/NLE timeline. You wouldn't try to decompress a zip file by hand, because 1) doing so is highly error prone and 2) adds no value to the process since in the best-case scenario you're simply recreating the original information before it was compressed. Also, the zip file analogy is more literal since log encoding is of course a form of compression itself.
@@iamericlenz Haha, I might. Btw, its' not just "overexposure" that leads to the washed-out rendering. All log-to-rec.709 CST's and LUTs are designed to translate up to around 60-80% of the log-encoded scene-referred light into the rec.709 space. This is because that's all that will fit into the smaller rec.709 gamma. CST's and LUTs are not intended to be tone-mapping operations, so any encoded scene-referred light still above log-encoded 60-80 IRE at the point of the CST/LUT conversion will get clipped to 100% in rec.709 space, which is what causes the washed-out rendering you demonstrated. There are two scenarios where scene-referred light will be greater than 60-80% in the log encoding - overexposure (which you covered), but also highlights in a properly-exposed high-DR scene. For the latter, the user must manually tone-map those highlights to below 60-80% in order for the CST/LUT to properly map it into rec.709 space. This of course is done via the normal scene-referred grading by the user.
Such a quality content and such an underrated channel. Many thanks Eric. I watched the whole thing, as always. It's amazing to see everything click and make sense, finally, with your explanations.
That 'Mistake 2' part was eye opening and exactly what I was struggeling with in Premiere Pro. I would select all clips in my footage bin and change the "override media color space" for S-Gamut3.Cine and I'd often feel like I'd lose half my dynamic range or get colors that look 'odd' to say the least. It got the the point where I currently fully ditched s-log because every other Sony PP would give me a lot more pleasant results. I scrolled down to see if there is a fix for PP and you suggested making an adjustment layer and doing the conversion there, which makes sense. But that would also mean that if I'd like to do some more adjustments on the color AFTER converting, i'd need to make another adjustment layer on top of that and change colors there right? If yes, my god that's such a hassle to just do some basic converting/grading... Why are you like this PP... Anyway, you earned yourself a new subscriber! :)
Just got here randomly since I recently got into color grading. I really like the way you slowly explain concepts, man. I wish you were using DaVinci Resolve though. I know TH-cam is oversaturated with it, and FCP color grading may be a new niche, but I believe it’s done. Even Apple is promoting DVR on its website.
Thank you! I do get your point but I disagree. FCP is here to stay. Apple promoting Resolve on their website is because they are a hardware company after all. Therefore, they want to sell their macs to all professionals, regardless the software they use.
I always thought what was the point of converting my footage from log to 709 when davinci has luts for every camera built in 🤔 glad to know I was doing the right thing
Great video, a few weeks back I watched a Gerald undone video on the same topic and was kinda left more confused than before but your video cleared up that confusion nicely (that doesn't mean gerald undone's video was bad but rather that it wasn't explained in a way that worked for me)
Wow, instant sub. I saw a video the other day and it looked like a nightmare to “grade” log2 footage. Where as I just told Premier use this LUT lol. But the explanation behind it that you provided is awesome! Now I’m off to pick back up Spanish
Resolve is just ace for all this as you can work in so many ways. I never use colour management and just do it in nodes and I find management too restrictive. I always have at least one node before log conversion to for mild corrections. That helps for off exposure etc. Then I’ll stick any other transform on timeline nodes if I need it. But some people really like using colour managed timelines for simplicity.
You could also apply a CST on the timeline level. This saves you redundant nodes on the clip level. :)
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@@iamericlenz That's not something I'd ever do personally, as I like to add nodes after transforms in the post-clip group, per group, but it'd definitely work for some people.
Man i am glad I use a resolve color managed workflow and don't need to worry about all of this. Just tell it what the input colorspace is and it'll do the rest
I think one thing which might help early in the explanation about the black-grey-white encoding since it relates to the dynamic range is that in the real world luminosity has no hard limit or max per se, but within a camera system, a video file and a reproduction system like a screen or projector it definitely has. If it weren't so, in a absurdist way we'd have laser beams shooting out of our TV's when we watch star wars. Regardless of whether we could have it or not we don't want it. Also on the bottom end, the difference between absolute black and near absolute black is zero for our perception. We can't perceive any difference until it's quite far from real absolute black, so we can chuck all that difference and call it black. So we end up with white/luminous - stuff in between - black/absence of light, and wide dynamic range is that the 'stuff in between' has a greater range than it does in normal/narrow dynamic range, the brightest white is brighter and the darkest black is "blacker"(lol).
YOU NEED A LUT if you shoot LOG, ProRes and everything that isn't 8-Bit! So many TH-camrs (who grade manullay) complain about their videos looking washed out on TH-cam when it looked fine in the editing software. This is solely due to inproper LUT usage or no LUT at all! If you don't apply one, you will export in a messed up color space, even if your export settings are set to Rec709 and every player and web browser will interpret this in a different way. Now, I know why so many people do that, and it is due to Premiere Pro's counter-intuitive workflow in which your footage looks very harsh and hasn't really much latitude for grading when you apply a LUT directly to the footage's clips (as one would think is the logical way to do it). BUT - You need to apply the LUT onto an adjustment layer above your footage and do all the contrast adjustments on the actual clip itself or another adjustment layer below the LUT layer. This is the proper workflow Premiere doesn't really communicate, but it is the only way to make the footage look really good and have all tonal range you would think you would get from a LUT when you had applied it directly to the clip - but it doesn't work that way. Try it, this solved years of headaches for me earlier on in my career.
@@JimRobinson-colors Not really. The Premiere internal workflow issues are the same on both platforms, and I know that because I transitioned from MAC to Windows solely to solve this issue, because I was convinced it is MAC specific. MAC has other MAC-specific issues with their own color management, yes, especially on those models on which the entire machine (computer and screen) are one unit. Fixable, but hard to fix. However, the LUT process issue stays exactly the same, due to the nature of how any LOG format works and the necessity to convert it properly to the target color space. That has nothing to do with MAC or Windows.
Between the video itself and your comment, I totally get it. What I'm confused about is why the developers of Premiere Pro didn't implement a more obvious way to apply a LUT. I guess, perhaps, log footage is relatively new and so the need for adjustments before the LUT is a relatively new need?
@@pedzsan Well, ARRI developed the first LOG format in 2008 and Sony came soon after around 2013 for consumer/pro-sumer level usage. But Adobe was pretty late to the party, integrating a straight forward LUT support for LOG footage only in 2015 with their Lumetri panel. Before that you had to either use dedicated plug-ins. I don't know why Adobe doesn't put more effort into explaining this and is relying so much on small payed TH-camrs to promote and explain functions and those rather amateurs (no offense) get so much wron, so often and spread wrong information and making it hard for everybody instead of having somebody official show proper workflows. There are "official" videos and courses out there, but even they contain weird or outdated information. On this topic specifically, I saw an official Adobe video and the guy talked 40 min about old TV norms, NITs and color spaced, which is not incorrect but didn't adress the issue of their LUTs applied directly to the clips is not working as it should.
Resolve has a built in color space transform feature in their effects. It's given me really good results and you don't have to use luts for your color space transforms.
Excellent video, Thanks. It cleared a few things up for me. I tried your D-logM to Rec709 LUT. I also downloaded the equivalent LUT from the DJI website. There is quite a difference between the two. What is the explanation for that considering that they are performing a mathematical gamma translation? I use Resolve and just about to buy a DJI osmo action 5 and want to make sure I can grade the D-LogM footage. The problem seems to be that DJI have not released the data for D-LogM so there is no way of interpreting the footage properly within a colour managed workflow as you can with D-log footage. D-log comes up as an option in the Colour Space Transform node whereas D-logM does not. Do you have any insight into this?
Hey everyone! This was a decent chunk of work and my longest video yet. I hope it helps you to focus on what actually matters. :)
Oh and I really hope we can move past the misunderstanding of LUTs soon!
Enjoy! 🖖
Brilliant video.
What i dont understand, is that at the beginning of mistake 2, you show both signal chain hierarchies and they look exactly the same. The color wheel that you claim to be affecting the color space transformation wasnt even present. i know im missing something here but analyzing the video i dont know. im trying to learn the process to make vlog look like 16mm so i wanted to know the steps before applying the rec709 lut, but i also want to know do you apply other luts to vlog after the rec709 lut is applied but before it in the signal chain hierarchy?
Its just a matter of whether your adjustments are before the LUT or after. If you use a clean colour space transformation LUT, you can perform all adjustments before the LUT. Even if you want to emulate 16mm film. However, I’d recommend having a look at Dehancer. That’s a Swiss army knife for stuff like this. I know, it’s a chunk of money, but I think it’s worth every penny.
@@iamericlenz i appreciate you answering, although i still dont know exactly what caused your footage to have that issue within the video, but i understand what you were saying about it
Now with dehancer is it the same thing, apply before the CST LUT?
EIther way man i appreciate it this video helped me a lot conceptualize and understand these concepts, especially dealing with multiple luts for different purposes. Also the graphs! i finally understand the gamma curves
@mavillejones5908 Dehancer handles the CST for you as you can choose your camera and gamma+gamut from the dropdown.
The footage in the video - one is overexposed and one is properly exposed. :)
I’m 70 years old and feel like my grandson just explained to me what I should do with the V-Log video shot with my new Lumix Gh9II camera Thank you, Eric. You may bask in the praise of knowing that you actually got through to an old guy who can easily move-on from videos like yours. You make perfect sense and I am grateful for you Cam2Rec CST. Jim in Oregon
Jim I'm so happy to read that! Thank you a lot!
I’m 32, but I also feel the same 😂way
I am not in this industry nor is it a hobby of mine. I am a math teacher by trade, but somehow I watched this whole video, and it made me want to dabble in color grading for fun. Thank you.
Incredible. Your video has just Colour Space Transformed my washed out, logarithmic understanding into functional, Rec. 709 knowledge. Bless you.
Haha :D Thank you!
Your ability to explain clear, concise and full of enthusiasm for your subject is captivating. Thank you!
You're very welcome!
This is probably the clearest explanation of gamma curves and color space transformations I've ever seen on TH-cam. Thanks!
agree ! nice drawings ;)
Thank you! :)
I had no idea people did manual colour space transformations before watching this video but it's nice knowing exactly why I've been doing things right all along.
The challenge many of us face is that some conversion LUTs are better (more accurate) than others and even the camera manufacture conversion LUTs can be problematic. The problem we then face is determining which conversion LUTs are more accurate.
Good point! Luckily Cam2Rec is here, haha :D
Its funny how i came for colour grading lesson and understood something about log that I didn't understand in 4 years of calculus.
You're a great teacher 🔥
This is great. I’d love to see a step-by-step video on simply how you color graded this video. I like the look a lot.
Thank you! I'm using a 2383 film emulation from Dehancer with all the bells and whistles. I'll do a video on that shortly. :)
You’re a gifted natural teacher. I’m glad I found you.
Thank you very much!
Thanks a lot Eric, I struggled so bad working with Log footage and it turns out that I was always doing my adjustment after the the LUT instead of before. Cheers man!
Thank you, Erik. This is what I have been looking for a long time. It's a lot of information out there about the subject, but you explanation is top of the line. Very educational and informative.
You just removed tons of stress I’ve been having. Thank you!
You are so welcome!
I literally stopped shooting S-Log3 because I could never figure out how to grade it properly. I'm by no means a professional but a hobbyist who has tried really hard to learn about this stuff. I would always do my color space transformation in Davinci as my first node and then tried to hack the clip into something that looked nice and it was SO DIFFICULT. It was so discouraging trying to fight the clip to do what I wanted after watching a tutorial that made it look so easy. I'm sure my footage also wasn't shot perfectly, but still, I put effort into that part of the equation as well, so I know about overexposing LOG on purpose and all that. Yet it was still so exhausting to try and grade my clips. After watching this, I realize my mistake might have been putting the CST node at the start of my node tree instead of at the end. Really excited to open up some old projects and see if this makes a difference! Thanks.
This is why Davinci Resolve node system is easier for people to grasp the importance of hierarchy. That being said, even for novice editors / colorists, you would expect people would be aware of what should be common sense :x
Yes, but you don't know what you don't know. So, instead of shaming people for not knowing stuff, I rather choose to educate. :)
You’re such a great teacher. I was able to understand all the information you delivered to your viewers. As a colorist myself, I really needed this, and it helped me gain a better understanding. Thank you!
Hi Eric. I’ve watched every video you’ve published and I’m here just to say that I’m a huge fan of your work. You make sure everything is explained correctly, not for the algorithm but for the people. Thanks a lot
This is hands down the most insightful and HELPFUL video I have watched on color grading. Seriously unmatched!! Thank you Eric!
Glad it was helpful! Thank you!
Tremendously helpful. Thanks so much for creating this for us.
Wow, das war die beste und verständlichste Erklärung zum Thema die ich je gesehen habe, danke dafür!
Thanks for these videos Eric. I am new to FCP & shooting in Log. I was really struggling until I came across your videos & corrected the order of everything. Now correcting exposure & colour grading is a breeze. I am also saving a lot of time & enjoying it more.
Fantastic! Thank you very much!
wow thank you, I fell genuinely conned by the tutorials that had me playing with curves on log footage for the past few years
Just a hobbyist, more of an audio girl, but I love learning about video too. Recently got a new Sony camera and dared to film in S-Log2. Been a little frustrated with color grading, until this video, and downloading your cam2rec LUTs. I feel like I know what I'm doing more now 😂 and I'm beginning to get the look I actually want. Thank you! You explained so clearly. Thank you for the work you put into this 😊
Seriously never felt like I understood this before, but this video has helped a lot
That's my goal! Thank you!
This was one of the best explanations I've ever seen of anything
This is the very best explanation of the concept I have come to. Thank you!
The BEST explanation I have ever seen! Thank you!!
Glad it was helpful! Thank you!
Brilliant Eric, you have explained very simply the reason that I do what I do. I understood that it ‘had’ to be done but you have pulled the reason apart and explained it thoroughly. Great job 👏🏻 LLAP
Excellent! Thank you!
Well, I learned so much from this. The value in this is unbelievable. Thank you.
You Sir, are a natural educator. This video picked me up where I was, explained the problem/challenge and broke it down in bits, recapping step by step what we learned.
I was struggling exactly with what you were describing… resulting in me not trusting LUTs. It’s so simple but it never came to me that it’s just a matter of signal chain order 🙈 …and having good color transform LUT of course..
You made my day! And probably saved me countless hours on future projects! Thank you!
My favorite quote was „translating Spanish to German is not poetry“ btw 😂❤️👍🏻 as a German I can say that there is probably going to be much lost in translation on that step in any case :p
Haha, thank you! Yes, every metaphor breaks down at some point eventually. :)
Great video, LUTs are handy, especially if you're not trying to do a cinema ready grade for a feature or just need a quick grade for a client. This is super helpful for FCP grading.
I think the reason people say to not use LUT's is because in Resolve we use Colour Managed workflows (as you mentioned at the start). Whether or not the method is actually the same under the hood, we have the confidence of knowing we are grading in a wide colour space and gamma such as ACES or DWG/I instead of grading the Cameras Log/Raw or worse in rec709.
Some people might question whether theres any point in doing CAMERA LOG ---> COLOUR MANAGED(ACES) ---> OUTPUT (rec.709) but it also means that our grades should transfer to any camera, and will usually 'feel' the same when grading. What I don't like is CAMERA LOG ---> OUTPUT (rec.709) like FCP and PP do.
I wish FCP and Premiere just had proper settings for colour management to give confidence in scene referred grading.
The best explanation I have seen on TH-cam, absolutely brilliant.
Much appreciated! Thank you!
bro I love you so much, you litteraly make me understand something I tried to understand for 1 month in 20 min !
Incredible explainer video. thank you so much this is grossly underrated
Glad it was helpful! Thank you!
Great video. I figured out most of the things you said on my own. But it took me a lot of hunting around and many hours of frustration. And coming from a photography background, this was easier to me than most people. If only I had your video earlier, it would be like a breeze. You are a very good teacher. I will definitely watch all your videos. Although I am not an FCP user, I can learn the concepts. I am an amateur colorist. I work in Premiere Pro, and going to shift to Resolve soon.
For sure! Teaching the concepts is my goal. Once you have the conceptual understanding, you can pretty much work with any tool.
wow. this was an amazing video and so well explained. it's always vital to know the fundamentals in anything and i love how you approached it and explained it, grounded in reality
Glad it helped! Thank you!
Well done on this, you’ve provided some super clear reasons and explanations that are sure to help many people to understand the process, rather than just learn the steps. 👍
Much appreciated! :)
This was the most easiest anyone has ever explained this to me!!! Thank you!
That's my goal! :)
This explained SO much... I am constantly fighting... I finally feel free, thank you.
That's my goal! You got this!
Great video, learned a lot. Haven't connected the dots between math log and foto log before, but make so much sense. And the transformation part about changing the input before the lut is huge. Thank! Simon 🇳🇴
Glad it was helpful! :)
Thank you for this explanation. I have seen explanations from a charity of sources but have never quite grasped the concept
You explained it brilliantly.
Appreciate that! Thank you!
This is by far the best and easiest video about CC I have ever sean!! Good work on the video!
Glad it helped! :)
PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN THIS
Thanks!
Great video with a clear explanation, however the video does not mention the importance of using an intermediate color space before transforming to Rec 709 and how the node tree facilitates that. First, use a CST in your first node to take your log footage to a wide color space like Davinci Intermediate. This allows a broader range of color to work with. Do all your work, adjustments, masks etc. in that wide space. The display must be Rec 709 calibrated and the last node on your tree is a CST from Davinci Intermediate to rec 709. If your node tree is not broken, you will see your adjustments displayed in rec709 as you make them and you will benefit from working in a very wide color space to get the best possible results.
Nothing to add here!
I'm very glad TH-cam suggested your channel and found your Cam2Rec CST LUTs. I've just tested them and they are working much better than the official Sony ones. Congrats and thanks so much for the free download! I have one question, if you'd be so kind to answer: I work with 10-bit, 4:2:2 S-log3 footage, should I apply sharpening and film grain BEFORE o AFTER your CST LUT. Thanks in advance!
Awesome, thank you! You can apply both before the LUT, but depending on the tools you use, you might need to put the grain after the LUT. The default should be doing everything before the LUT but if it doesn't work, then put it after the LUT or use a different tool. :)
Beautifully explained - wonderful work Eric!
Thank you very much! :)
Eric, this video is fantastic. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much!
100% agree. A log curve is a very specific mapping of stops on a logarithmic curve. It's used to fit a large amount of stops within a smaller space. A lut or color transform is an exact reversing of that curve. It's not bad and is 100% exactly what we should have if the camera didn't need to shoot log to capture that much range. Log is basically a kind of image compression. With other forms of image encoding we have to use decoding to perfectly reverse the process. The same is true of log. More data is compressed into a smaller space. We then use a transform for that log format to reverse it perfectly.
From that point we can manually make adjustments until we are blue in the face for the creative look. Grading should happen in layers or stages. Not trying to cram the entire process into a one and done step.
I feel like many suggested manual grading because it was cool and impressive at one point. It's just wrong and incredibly inefficient to do so. It's not being creative to do it. Its just wasting time and using the completely wrong process to grade material. Creativity comes after the normalizing.
A normalizing lut or transform may not look perfect but thats kind of the point. It just normalizes. Then one adds the creativity but they leave the precision pat of the converse not tools designed for that precision. After that point one can go nuts creatively.
A lut will cap the output to 100 where a CST won't - if you choose aLUT instead of a CST you can't do anything after or you lose the 32-bit float.
@@JimRobinson-colorsI’m not entirely sure that’s true. While luts are pretty dumb the values they contain are floating point numbers and not just a 10bit coded value. By using floating point numbers they can convert to some pretty precise colors in a 32bit float space.
Plus the log format and camera clipping points will typically limit what happens past certain points a heck of a lot more than the precision differences on how 32bit float is used.
A color of 32.000345 is going to appear as pretty much exactly the same as a color of 32 and that added precision doesn’t really do much at all.
I think it only really comes into play if you stretch the daylights out of the material which is much more likely going to fall apart long before a limit of 32bit float precision would.
But once you have a video recorded even in raw you have hard coded values in that bit depth. 8bit, 10bit or 12bit. 32bit can help when you stretch out values to create new in between values but it doesn’t magically add more coded values to either end of the video. In the encoded video a 10bit value of 128 for stop -7 and stop -8 are identical in how they were encoded in the file. There are no longer any variations of 128 and 127.5. The damage is done which is why I prefer 12bit raw and hope we get more common 14bit raw video formats someday.
It’s all really splitting hairs with 8bit and 10bit video.
Clipped values are clipped values no matter what. No math will change that. If a value was not clipped before it likely will not suddenly be clipped with a lut transform. Unless a value in log is in an illegal range that should not be possible with that lut transform. For example over exposed.
This is why you make adjustments before those luts so they don’t clip past pure white 100%.
I’m not sure if we have ever had any technical confirmation of how the custom out effect is handled in FCP. I use it a lot with custom luts and it seems really flexible and doesn’t fall apart any sooner than just a normal 32bit color adjustment would. Like I said the coded value bit depth is going to affect that ability long before a lut will.
Yep, it's like using a linear profile for your stills raws, when most should start out at a regular contrast curve that better matches the dynamic range of the display which you can then pull more dynamic range into it if you need..
Yes, everyone! If you are in Resolve, use a CST instead. This video was more targeted towards the creators rather than the colourists but the algorithm decided to push it in another direction. 🙈
good video. i learnt this recently through consistent practicing as i like to overexpose clog3. i was able to work on the image before the lut. big difference.
I've been trying to get get an idea of how this all works. This video really helps. Nicely explained. A big thank you!!
Glad it was helpful! :)
Brilliant video! What an education! Thank you so much for your work and insights...
Glad it was helpful! Thanks!
Incredible video! Explained so well and very informative and entertaining 👏
Fantastic work. I'm in the script stage of a similar video but you handled the subject so well I no longer feel the need to complete mine. Like you, I devised analogies to explain the folly of manually working in log space, including languages like German and French. I ultimately decided on using a file compression analogy instead. Treat log footage as a compressed zip file, ie an opaque intermediate file that transports a large amount of information from the camera to your computer/NLE timeline. You wouldn't try to decompress a zip file by hand, because 1) doing so is highly error prone and 2) adds no value to the process since in the best-case scenario you're simply recreating the original information before it was compressed. Also, the zip file analogy is more literal since log encoding is of course a form of compression itself.
Sounds like a fantastic idea. I’d do it if I was you! :)
@@iamericlenz Haha, I might. Btw, its' not just "overexposure" that leads to the washed-out rendering. All log-to-rec.709 CST's and LUTs are designed to translate up to around 60-80% of the log-encoded scene-referred light into the rec.709 space. This is because that's all that will fit into the smaller rec.709 gamma. CST's and LUTs are not intended to be tone-mapping operations, so any encoded scene-referred light still above log-encoded 60-80 IRE at the point of the CST/LUT conversion will get clipped to 100% in rec.709 space, which is what causes the washed-out rendering you demonstrated. There are two scenarios where scene-referred light will be greater than 60-80% in the log encoding - overexposure (which you covered), but also highlights in a properly-exposed high-DR scene. For the latter, the user must manually tone-map those highlights to below 60-80% in order for the CST/LUT to properly map it into rec.709 space. This of course is done via the normal scene-referred grading by the user.
Such a quality content and such an underrated channel. Many thanks Eric. I watched the whole thing, as always. It's amazing to see everything click and make sense, finally, with your explanations.
Much appreciated, thank you very much! :)
Absolutely loved the video, thank you for the explanation!
My pleasure!
That 'Mistake 2' part was eye opening and exactly what I was struggeling with in Premiere Pro. I would select all clips in my footage bin and change the "override media color space" for S-Gamut3.Cine and I'd often feel like I'd lose half my dynamic range or get colors that look 'odd' to say the least. It got the the point where I currently fully ditched s-log because every other Sony PP would give me a lot more pleasant results.
I scrolled down to see if there is a fix for PP and you suggested making an adjustment layer and doing the conversion there, which makes sense. But that would also mean that if I'd like to do some more adjustments on the color AFTER converting, i'd need to make another adjustment layer on top of that and change colors there right? If yes, my god that's such a hassle to just do some basic converting/grading... Why are you like this PP...
Anyway, you earned yourself a new subscriber! :)
Just got here randomly since I recently got into color grading. I really like the way you slowly explain concepts, man. I wish you were using DaVinci Resolve though. I know TH-cam is oversaturated with it, and FCP color grading may be a new niche, but I believe it’s done. Even Apple is promoting DVR on its website.
Thank you! I do get your point but I disagree. FCP is here to stay. Apple promoting Resolve on their website is because they are a hardware company after all. Therefore, they want to sell their macs to all professionals, regardless the software they use.
What an incredible information! You are a great teacher! Subscribed!
I have learned something really important and valuable through your videos.
Thank you very much ❤❤❤
My pleasure 😊
Really love your channel mate! keep it up!
Glad you enjoy it!
I would love a BRAW workflow within FXPX! I don’t know if anyone else struggles with it. This video is very helpful 🔥I learn so much from these videos
BRAW-Toolbox is out there :)
so good dude. not enough people are going to see this, but i hope that ends up not being true. great work
Haha, let's hope! :D
What a great explanation! Subscribed.
Thank you! :)
I always thought what was the point of converting my footage from log to 709 when davinci has luts for every camera built in 🤔 glad to know I was doing the right thing
You are a great teacher.
Glad you think so! Thank you!
The explanation is extraordinary. Never understand what log means until now. BTW at 5:56 You draw the camera range in the wrong place.
very helpful. thanks a lot for the tips - and the LUT´s.
My pleasure!
Great video, a few weeks back I watched a Gerald undone video on the same topic and was kinda left more confused than before but your video cleared up that confusion nicely
(that doesn't mean gerald undone's video was bad but rather that it wasn't explained in a way that worked for me)
Yeah, sometimes, you just need a different angle to look at it! :)
Thank you!
Now that's a masterclass on explaining concepts! thanks for the knowledge. Subbed halfway through the video
Thank you very much!
Thank you for the free luts :)
Brilliant explanation, regardless of what hardware and software you use. 🙏
True that! Thank you!
Terrific explanation! Thanks for the video!
Thank you!
Dude this was amazing, thanks!
Glad you liked it! :)
Great and well explained video! Just picked up a Lumix S5ii and learning the new system and log! Have you tried or any thoughts on Phantom luts?
Finaly! I understand! Thank you so much!
Thank you! That's my goal!
Wow, instant sub. I saw a video the other day and it looked like a nightmare to “grade” log2 footage. Where as I just told Premier use this LUT lol. But the explanation behind it that you provided is awesome! Now I’m off to pick back up Spanish
This is amazing, thank you!!!
Great, Great Tutorial and insights. Great teacher. This is information I needed years ago!. Thank you so much.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you!
Resolve is just ace for all this as you can work in so many ways. I never use colour management and just do it in nodes and I find management too restrictive. I always have at least one node before log conversion to for mild corrections. That helps for off exposure etc.
Then I’ll stick any other transform on timeline nodes if I need it.
But some people really like using colour managed timelines for simplicity.
You could also apply a CST on the timeline level. This saves you redundant nodes on the clip level. :)
@@iamericlenz That's not something I'd ever do personally, as I like to add nodes after transforms in the post-clip group, per group, but it'd definitely work for some people.
I have just implemented the guidance in this video having downloaded your free LUT package. Es hat sofort gegangen, vielen Danke.
Wonderful! Thank you!
such a great lesson! thank you eric!
Thank you!
Man i am glad I use a resolve color managed workflow and don't need to worry about all of this. Just tell it what the input colorspace is and it'll do the rest
I think one thing which might help early in the explanation about the black-grey-white encoding since it relates to the dynamic range is that in the real world luminosity has no hard limit or max per se, but within a camera system, a video file and a reproduction system like a screen or projector it definitely has. If it weren't so, in a absurdist way we'd have laser beams shooting out of our TV's when we watch star wars. Regardless of whether we could have it or not we don't want it. Also on the bottom end, the difference between absolute black and near absolute black is zero for our perception. We can't perceive any difference until it's quite far from real absolute black, so we can chuck all that difference and call it black.
So we end up with white/luminous - stuff in between - black/absence of light, and wide dynamic range is that the 'stuff in between' has a greater range than it does in normal/narrow dynamic range, the brightest white is brighter and the darkest black is "blacker"(lol).
You are absolutely right about that. But try to pack that in a digestible video :D
YOU NEED A LUT if you shoot LOG, ProRes and everything that isn't 8-Bit! So many TH-camrs (who grade manullay) complain about their videos looking washed out on TH-cam when it looked fine in the editing software. This is solely due to inproper LUT usage or no LUT at all! If you don't apply one, you will export in a messed up color space, even if your export settings are set to Rec709 and every player and web browser will interpret this in a different way. Now, I know why so many people do that, and it is due to Premiere Pro's counter-intuitive workflow in which your footage looks very harsh and hasn't really much latitude for grading when you apply a LUT directly to the footage's clips (as one would think is the logical way to do it). BUT - You need to apply the LUT onto an adjustment layer above your footage and do all the contrast adjustments on the actual clip itself or another adjustment layer below the LUT layer. This is the proper workflow Premiere doesn't really communicate, but it is the only way to make the footage look really good and have all tonal range you would think you would get from a LUT when you had applied it directly to the clip - but it doesn't work that way. Try it, this solved years of headaches for me earlier on in my career.
If you are using a Mac - it's a different problem entirely.
@@JimRobinson-colors Not really. The Premiere internal workflow issues are the same on both platforms, and I know that because I transitioned from MAC to Windows solely to solve this issue, because I was convinced it is MAC specific. MAC has other MAC-specific issues with their own color management, yes, especially on those models on which the entire machine (computer and screen) are one unit. Fixable, but hard to fix. However, the LUT process issue stays exactly the same, due to the nature of how any LOG format works and the necessity to convert it properly to the target color space. That has nothing to do with MAC or Windows.
Between the video itself and your comment, I totally get it. What I'm confused about is why the developers of Premiere Pro didn't implement a more obvious way to apply a LUT. I guess, perhaps, log footage is relatively new and so the need for adjustments before the LUT is a relatively new need?
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!!
@@pedzsan Well, ARRI developed the first LOG format in 2008 and Sony came soon after around 2013 for consumer/pro-sumer level usage. But Adobe was pretty late to the party, integrating a straight forward LUT support for LOG footage only in 2015 with their Lumetri panel. Before that you had to either use dedicated plug-ins. I don't know why Adobe doesn't put more effort into explaining this and is relying so much on small payed TH-camrs to promote and explain functions and those rather amateurs (no offense) get so much wron, so often and spread wrong information and making it hard for everybody instead of having somebody official show proper workflows. There are "official" videos and courses out there, but even they contain weird or outdated information. On this topic specifically, I saw an official Adobe video and the guy talked 40 min about old TV norms, NITs and color spaced, which is not incorrect but didn't adress the issue of their LUTs applied directly to the clips is not working as it should.
Really wonderful breakdown Eric...Thank u so much man 🤗
My pleasure! Thank you!
Always a pleasure seeing you. Thanks
So nice of you, thank you! :)
Resolve has a built in color space transform feature in their effects. It's given me really good results and you don't have to use luts for your color space transforms.
Yeah, the CST and the LUT are very similar. So, everything I said in the video about LUTs is true for the CST, too. :)
This was great and opened my eyes. You have a new sub.
Thanks and welcome! :)
Always love your videos. very educational!
Thank you!
Excellent video, Thanks. It cleared a few things up for me. I tried your D-logM to Rec709 LUT. I also downloaded the equivalent LUT from the DJI website. There is quite a difference between the two. What is the explanation for that considering that they are performing a mathematical gamma translation? I use Resolve and just about to buy a DJI osmo action 5 and want to make sure I can grade the D-LogM footage. The problem seems to be that DJI have not released the data for D-LogM so there is no way of interpreting the footage properly within a colour managed workflow as you can with D-log footage. D-log comes up as an option in the Colour Space Transform node whereas D-logM does not. Do you have any insight into this?
Thats so nicely explained ❤
Thanks a lot 😊
Omg I learned and understood a lot of things, thanks man, thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much!
OMG thanks the almighty god of youtube algorithm. That's the fastest sub in my life. I´ll be watching your content my man, it's top notch. Thanks!
Wow, thanks! Welcome aboard! :)
Great job on this. Very valuable info.
Thank you!
Eric Bro, a lot of value in this video my man. Thanks bro
Any time! Thank you so much! :)
Great video Eric! You got one more subscriber! Cheers!
Awesome, thank you!
i like the correction lut! better skin tones and a little softer than the sony lut :)
Thank you! Yeah, Sony's LUTs have some weird biases.
This was immensely helpful thank youn
Thank you! Glad it helped!
Oh wow, vrey nice explained.
Thank you!