How to modify LUTs to get the best looking footage for your project

[@flochfitness]

In a world of “this is the secret sauce”/power window/just go by feel color grading teachers on KZbin, you are a beacon of shining light. Your ability to break down complex processes into simple objective steps is exactLy what I need as an aspiring creator. I appreciate you!!!

[@biswajit07]

yes, he’s very technically sound.

[@abbyrodebaugh6634]

I have learned more from you for free than the two online courses I bought. I can’t thank you enough for sharing. Much appreciated sir! 😊

[@raengraphy]

With other color grading tutors on KZbin I make conscious efforts to consistently tap in on their stuff. Since I discovered you I effortlessly tap in on a daily! It doesn’t feel like work, it feels like I’m actually learning. Thank you 🙏🏾

[@DodaGarcia]

I'm always mindblown by the quality in this channel.

[@jasonschiffer2024]

The way how Cullen taught everybody is just like how he does color grading, splitting to different kinds of nodes in his youtube channel for us to study. What a legend!

[@nathansextoncolour]

Thanks Cullen, that layer mixer technique was awesome! Really looking forward to Friday’s grade school!

[@sashazephiria3869]

Wow this video was gold ! Especially the last technique with the layer mixer !

[@adsmithtx]

Great Lesson. not only about LUTs but a great lesson on node trees. Thank You

[@videosbybanana6]

it is always a pleasure to listen to somebody who is much, much smarter than me :) thank you for your work

[@jessetimmmiller1870]

Cullen, this video is gold!! Thank you SO much. A lot of things clicked for me with this one. Been really desiring to mess with LUTs while using DWG Color Managed workflow. Now I know how!! The almost effortless eloquence with which you convey these ideas is incredible. Truly. Thanks again!

[@joyoffilming9500]

Cullen, this is one f the moste valuable tutorials you probably made. I love your Kodak2383 LUT but was sometimes struggling with the radical impact it made on my footage - now I Know how to deal much better and with endless versatility with it. Thanks so much with sharing these great tips with us!

[@christianrushpostpro]

i fully expect a shredding guitar cover of something in the future. don't let me down. another great video! can't wait to possibly discuss in this weeks grade school

[@pjtavera]

learning many technical and creative DR processes here! Thanks Cullen

[@cinema8564]

Love the Layer Mixer/Color Blend Mode technique! So much fun to have a powerful tool that's easy to implement (and very difficult to do otherwise!). Like the power of calculus: a little differential here, a little integral there, and soon you are solving some very difficult problems. More! Mike

[@danivasilioglufilms]

Thank you!!! I was adding an extra node before the LUT one, just to reduce some of the LUT s strength. This is a more sleek approach. Cool stuff..

[@rukundosalvator6508]

oh my God! you never Disappoint me brother much respect From Rwanda🇷🇼 great tutorial thank you so much

[@JonPais]

This was excellent. Thanks, Cullen. Really like the new look, too.

[@77dris]

This man is an amazing teacher and talented colour artist! Thank you Cullen!

[@kenslyfresh6582]

Dam...I'm learning so much. Like the minor critical and technical stuff that truly take you the realm of professional colorist. I feel like a Noob all over again, lol. This is intriicate stuff I didn't know about.

[@JakubChlouba]

These tips are so good man! Thanks a lot, I literally watched the video yesterday and came back to it today to properly apply the last method in one of my grades. Thanks again man!

[@albertorambaudi6055]

intersting , cant wait to see how you create your luts and wich tools you use , have a beautiful day

[@JesseSchroeder]

Holy shit, these are some incredible techniques

[@tomaskonvicka4135]

I wish I had a teacher like you for every school subject in my life:)

[@jondargy]

I did not understand and probably abused the pivot setting. This video was amazing on many levels. But the biggest ah-ha moment… pivot value’s relationship to middle grey within a particular color space 🤯. Thank you for doing what you do!

[@NimeshShresthaeditor]

Many thanks to you for helping me build a guitar Cullen.😊😊

[@p.a.dconstructionltd4139]

Thanks for the dwg lut and the list... really handy! Enjoying this topic.

[@mohossain]

Love the layer mixer technique mate. Thanks a mil 👍

[@RedFrameTech]

Incredibly useful video. Thanks!

[@jseamans]

Hey Cullen, I can't get the layer mixer setup to work. Composite mode is set to COLOR. Same LUT is on both nodes. Changing the opacity of the second lower node doesn't change the saturation. At least to my eye. I'm working in node based color management, so I don't think it's the glitch you've mentioned previously with the layer node getting fussy when using project based color management. I have to say I didn't notice color change when you demonstrated the technique in the video. I assumed it was just hard to see on KZbin, but maybe I need to get my eyes checked. It does work when I disable the upper node which makes me think the layers aren't separating color and contrast they way you describe. I would really like this to work.

[@jseamans]

I tried putting the saturation of the upper contrast node to zero, which makes the lower color node work well, but the saturation range in that node then extends below what's in the LUT to zero when the key gain is set to zero, if that makes sense.

[@toxotis70]

@@CullenKelly i try to make the same thing but it doesnt work...any help please?

[@NikHem343]

Take this with a grain of salt, but in theory the layers themselves would have to be set to color mode and luminance mode respectively and then be combined in a mixer. I don’t know resolve enough, yet, to know if you can change the layer mode of a node itself. Maybe you can have two nodes: both of them set to color space HSV, but on one, you deactivate Channel 3 (V) and on the other two you deactivate Ch 1 and 2 (H and S). Merging these should - in my theory at least - result in the kind of separation aimed for.

[@SatyamSamantray]

Incredible tutorials Cullen. Keep them coming.

[@HanaStern-vc3xd]

the best tutorial, thank you

[@abagatelle]

Brilliant! Very very useful tips.

[@JohannBeute]

Trying to download the lut, but it isn't working! I'd really love to be able to. Please help!

[@rnvideoplus3911]

This video is great ! Thank you for sharing

[@entengstravellog9320]

Fantastic explanation as always mate. I have learnt heaps. I just got a question. I do understand what ur saying about using the right kind of LUT's for DWG CM. My question is how do I know if the build in luts in davinci resolve i.e films emulation kodak and fuji luts are they able to deliver DWG in and out? Or do i still need to use a cineon CST? Cheers and hope this make sense.

[@patrickfalls6819]

I would also like the answer to your question.

[@dkhart]

That’s a great video! Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@dkhart]

@@CullenKelly I did! It’s fascinating how much more there is to learn about color grading/management! Many times it’s even overwhelming..

[@pitchpatch]

Excellent explanation as always! For me, splitting color and contrast does not work using the layer mixer. I missed grade school and can not find the video of that episode. Can you help me out?

[@pitchpatch]

@@CullenKelly Great! Is there any chance that you can add the questions with time stamps to the video description again? This was super helpful when trying to find answers in past episodes 🙂

[@JimibobThun]

Hey Cullen, are your DWG LUT's available online? Or are just so many not stating what their LUT's take as an input? I can't seem to find any other.

[@brendanclark.8059]

Hi Cullen. I hope this question makes sense. I was under the impression that LUTs are typically expecting a Cineon input. Any thoughts? BTW, the fact that you can pack so much information in 12 minutes is fantastic! Thank you!

[@Gedaly]

A LUT is just a set of instructions, one can be designed to expect any type of input. The LUTs that come with Resolve in the "Film Looks" folder are designed for a Cineon input.

[@_flanky]

Tasty tekkers as always my man, so useful! Side note: Your voice is so calming, I could literally listen to you read a dictionary 😴😂

[@adsmithtx]

Just watching this video, you used a layer mixer node to apply a composite of color, in DaVinci 18.5 would you add another serial node to set the composite to color or just set the composite to color on the serial node you have in the node tree??

[@zechenwei1139]

Hi Cullen! I have purchased the ebook The Colorist's 10 Commandments a LONG time ago, but I haven't got the chance to read it. now the download link has expired, how can I get a new one? Thanks a lot! Great video btw.

[@ColbyBrickwell]

Hi Cullen! Based off what you said about making the pivot point .336 for DWG, does that mean you should not touch the pivot value after setting it to .336 to preserve middle grey? Is it okay to still play with the pivot value to get the proper contrast in looking for or is it then going to be effecting my middle grey point?

[@Longdancer]

Hi Cullen Can't seem to find the subsequent Grade School for this topic! Link says 'Unavailable - This video is Private' Will you be putting this up at any stage? Loved the 10 Commandments download Cullen. Good experienced insights. Thanks

[@Longdancer]

@@CullenKelly Thanks Cullen. Just for a moment I thought i was going mad.

[@BaylonTV]

Does your 2383 LUT add any film grain to the image, or do we need to do that manually? If not, should we add the grain before or after the LUT node?

[@Filo_Red]

LUTs don't carry spatial informations (such as grain, blur, halation, etc...) there's a debate on which is the best way to apply grain if at the start of the node graph, before the 709 transform/lut, or after the aforementioned transform. The decision on where to put the grain is your and yours only. I personaly apply before my Rec709 transform, but thats my taste. If you look on the lift gamma gain forum there are a lot of interesting discussions on grain. Hope this was helpful :)

[@JimRobinson-colors]

@@CullenKelly I agree, especially if you do any smoothing or blurring - the node order really matters. Easy test of that is to add grain on a node before any power windows or gradient blurs etc. and then turn on the "grain only" and take a look at what those do to your grain.

[@shipaudas]

Hey Cullen, im kind of confused with the difference between normalized, 10bit and 12bit. When working with 10 bit footage and a 10 bit timeline my middle gray point should be the 10bit (344) right?

[@drivingcroooner]

Hey Cullen, I am curious, what was your process for creating the DWG to DWG 2383?

[@dkhart]

Same question!

[@adsmithtx]

after the end of the video, I would say you would create a new serial node to apply the composite mode. Correct?

[@garethpearce5255]

Ohhhh this is very cooll! Thank you.

[@uummiid]

you're my hero

[@hDesk]

简洁直接理性，感谢，很有帮助

[@kashifniaz]

Great tips here sir 👍

[@acoast84]

So would it be logical in the beginning of every project to set my color space middle grey pivotpoint on a global, timeline level? Thank you!

[@CullenKelly]

You could absolutely do that! The main thing to be sure of is that any exposure or contrast operation happening at the look level for your project should not manipulate the position of middle gray of your working color space.

[@koushikbhattacharya832]

awesome awesome techniques♥️...sir I asked a question in last grade school but the answer is not clear to me...that is i am using tour DWG 2383 lut can i send this lut to vfx as viewing lut or should i send the ASES version?

[@koushikbhattacharya832]

@@CullenKelly i am always hungry for grade school...thank u so much sir♥️

[@johnmeric492]

amazing!!

[@pollloxxx]

Hi Cullen, i want to make a question if is posible. I heard a color scientist say that if I add contrast with the knob (in S mode), before or after a lut (que esta compuesto tambien por una S curve), it can cause overlapping whis this S curves because this are not exacly the same, an this is notice in the dark areas. this is true?, and if this true, does your lut not cause this overlap with the the curve of the CST? thanks Cullen!!

[@pollloxxx]

@@CullenKelly for sure! ,thank you very much Cullen!!

[@pollloxxx]

so good my friend, i love V2 of the lut, the skin tone is beautiful. I just want to say that the last method dont work for me totaly, the node for take out the color dont do thant, but the node for the contrast work. Sorry my terrible english

[@brmoogma]

thats a bug in resolve....

[@StefanRingelschwandtner]

If I understand you correctly, try and add an "empty node" after the Node with the LUT in it. Just before you are going to the Layer Mixer Node. So you have a Node with the LUT, followed by an Empty Node, then the line goes into the Layer Mixer.

[@martinlopezfl]

As of today, your website LUTs cart link is not working. Just FYI. Also, the Middle Grey cheat sheet did not come with the Zip file, if you can post a link that would be great! Thank you sir.

[@martinlopezfl]

Sorry, link still broken. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

[@Ronbc000]

Why is the scopes window not visible in your tutorials?

[@deepmusic2456]

If I grade in rec 709 luts then I have to convert in p3 luts but colour is changing not look same

[@capestranosfilm3047]

Thanks Sir

[@mrshaheedmalik]

Your 2383 Lut, is it D55, D60, or D65?

[@mrshaheedmalik]

@@CullenKelly Thanks!

[@andrewchaplin6131]

The missing link! Thank you.

[@lifesaversaver5824]

elements lut where do i find it

[@Zinstudios1]

Hi Cullen. Hope you are doing okay.

[@ErikAndersonFradejas]

Hi Cullen, nice tips! I came out with an extra step of complexity: what if I want to control the color and the contrast of the LUT separately? I tried something but I don't know if I am doing correctly. I will try to explain the node structure with words, may be difficult. I put two nodes in layer mixer (composite mode in color) for contrast and two more (composite mode in luminosity) for color, just as you explained. So at this time I have two layer mixer nodes, one for contrast (upper position) and one for color. Then, this mixers go to a simple serial node each (again, at this time I have two in parallel) that are combined in an extra layer mixer node. This is the one that goes to the very end of the node structure. This last layer mixer node is set to "color" composite mode, which is the one that seems to work. Am I correct? How you would do that? Thank you!

[@shebbe]

Nice tip with the middle grey cheat sheet! It's interesting/funny to see that you've named your LUT DWG but in the case of Arri you'd probably call it LogC. Whilst one only calls out the primaries and the other only the transfer function. Ideally you'd want to be fully descriptive and add both but we tend to only name the transfer function (for sake of short names) however calling it Intermediate looks weird because of it's name. I blame BMD :) B-Log doesn't look that nice either but they could've come up with a better log name hehe.

[@brmoogma]

these layer adjustments still dont work in a color managed set up...Hope, Blackmagic can fix this in the future....

[@garethpearce5255]

I just tried this technique that Cullen is presenting here, and it seemed to work as expected for me in a colour managed setup. Unless I'm missing something...

[@brmoogma]

@@garethpearce5255 did you set up the color management in project settings or nodes?

[@garethpearce5255]

@@brmoogma project settings

[@brmoogma]

@@garethpearce5255 are you using resolve 18? I am still in 17, and the bug is there....

[@garethpearce5255]

@@brmoogma No, I was wrong. Sorry I had been away from the office for a few days so couldn't recheck, but it's definitely not working right with colour managed settings at the project level, on 17.

[@JimRobinson-colors]

I think it is confusing when using color management that you if you put the image in highlight mode you are still seeing the display colorspace, so the middle grey looks to be middle grey for rec709 and not whatever log space the footage happens to be. Isn't the pivot of .435 middle grey for Rec709? I get confused as well with this - if I throw up the isabella chart in color managed and the timeline is Rec709 2.4 click on the middle grey on the source, the dot on the curve is not where it would be if in davinci wide - but changing it to DWG the middle on the curve goes down to what you have on your chart. But when you change it in the timeline settings with no grading - they look the same. So it is strange to me that a grade in DWG and one in Rec709 would be so different in contrast when they are visually the same. See - I am even confusing myself trying to explain what I mean.

[@alaskanfrogman]

the true and only applicable table to the "LUT" is "Lookup Table," which is a coloring tool made to give video films a specific look and feel. The term "LUT" is simply an acronym for "Lookup Table."