While bringing color to your images is best done manually, LUTs will speed things up. Here’s how I customized the LUT to get the most out of both worlds in a short time.
Years ago, I wrote an article about the use of in-camera profile picture in your workflow. I mentioned that LUT should be the next thing that a photographer and videographer notices. Today, however, LUTs are much more popular. Therefore, I thought I would break down some tools to help personalize your look.
3D LUT Creator
An obvious choice, this app is a precision tool for professionals. 3D LUT Creator is the tool I use when I need to get rid of the redness on someone’s face without affecting their red coat. While I often use it to complement Premiere Pro’s Lumetri system, it works great for Photoshop and Lightroom. It starts at $99 and ranges up to $250 for all bells and whistles. I recommend using the pro version if you’re looking to do more than just minor tweaks.
3D LUT Creator really helped me on set. If the client doesn’t like what they see on the screen, I can quickly create a new LUT based on the original LUT. For example, saturating the background without affecting the skin tone.
DaVinci Resolve
Like 3D LUT Creator, Handle is a very handy tool to have on set. Of course, the sorting ability is top of the line in the industry. However, the speed and ability to output LUTs to screens make it particularly useful for dealing with LUTs. The free version will only work with 8-bit video footage, but that’s still free, so take advantage of what you can get.
Look at the design 2
Colorlab has repackaged “Designer Look” from their main tool and it allows users to make quick judgments from the video footage. Previously it was only available on DaVinci Resolve, but now Adobe’s Premiere Pro is available.
It’s basically a movie emulator. I find it to be more satisfying than most plugins of its kind, and it brings obvious tools like “lifting” into Premiere Pro without using Curves. Users can export a LUT when they are satisfied with the score. In particular, I want to know that I can generally get a solid look from any camera thrown at me, as it can handle many different types of log footage. It also doesn’t just have a single Rec.709 conversion, which is great. The price for a perpetual license is $490 or $24 a month.
Lutify
I don’t usually recommend Lutify for everyone. Personally I feel that users are better off maintaining their own LUT library without registration. Although I don’t use it on a daily basis, I have tried it and know that it is a powerful tool worth mentioning.
Lutify’s Integrations runs deep, and sometimes it’s the only means of getting a LUT into certain workflows. For example, it’s a nice way to import LUTs into Capture One – although Capture One doesn’t necessarily support this. 3D LUT Creator can also be used to create custom ICC profiles for Capture One, so check out what Lutify is doing for your workflow first.
Generator IWLTBAP LUT
This one is a bit confusing and a bit older, but it might help a beginner get a handle on what a LUT really is. Basically, the user creates a HALD image, affects the image as desired, and feeds the affected HALD back to the LUT generator. Super simple tool.
This means you can create a LUT from any software. If you still have a working copy, you can even get the LUT out of Apple’s Aperture. IWLTBAP’s LUT Generator not always the most convenient tool, but it works very well. It’s a good backup when Photoshop’s built-in LUT generator is active.
Adobe Creative Cloud / Frame.io
I don’t always work on my own machine, and so I often want quick access to my LUTs and tools. Therefore, I keep everything in one Creative Cloud storage folder. If I can’t log into the machine, I can use the browser to fetch everything. I also uploaded everything to the Frame folder, since I usually log into my account anyway. It can be a huge time saver when I’m just looking for a quick conversion LUT for log footage, or even when I need to edit stills as quickly as possible.
Do you have any other suggestions? Let us know in the comments section.
