How To Use The 2D Curves In 3D LUT Creator

[@WilliamLesourd]

What an amazing tool. The Russian developer who laid this golden egg is truly a genius. Your two first examples particularly were great to help us understand how it shifted colors. I now have a post-it on my laptop with the losanges drawn up and the corresponding colors... I started messing with it yesterday afternoon, but I didn't go very far. I can see that it is the ultimate tool for fine tuned grading. Looking forward to trying it in a few minutes and to watching your next video.

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

So glad you found it a useful video William! And I think trying it or ‘playing around’ with it is a great way to learn it and see what it can do. The person that developed it really is a genius I think. He ought to be working for Adobe….though I don’t know if he can being in Russia and all.

[@MrShanepix]

Learned a lot from this lesson, Howard. Glad you spent the much-needed time on the 2D curves and its use on color control of one's image. Keep up the good work!

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Thanks Shane. The 2D curves are definitely the ones that are the least familiar or intuitive, at least to me! Glad you found it helpful.

[@yvesgauvreau2196]

This image is a perfect example of what I said to you in another video. The areas that are blown out are clearly visible on the grids as white dots at the edge of the grids and presumably beyond. If you open the raw file directly in 3DLC, you may very likely see that your raw file is not overexposed and not over saturated. You'll have to work harder to bring it to look similar to this version, but without loss of details. Of course, the raw can be overexposed as well, but maybe not. I'd be curious to see that?

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Hi Yves. Opening a RAW file in 3DLC is not something I have done nor do I actually know how how to do offhand. But I can tell you that the areas were blown out when the image came out of Lightroom processing and into Photoshop.

[@timmahaffey4895]

Thanks again for making another useful video, I typically skip 2D curves but can see now where it could be useful. Btw, I very much enjoyed your recent article in Frames about Self Expression - very relevant to me at this stage of my journey as a photographer!

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Hi Tim. Glad to hear you enjoyed them. The video and the article! Thanks

[@dmitrymyshkov811]

You make interesting streams. Thank you. And can you tell the difference between cl grid and 2d curves? What you can't do in c/l that you can do in 2d curves.

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Hi Dmitry. The 2D curves make rather global changes to the image while the C/L grid is generally for a more targeted approach.

[@dmitrymyshkov811]

@@howardgrillphotography2280 :) Got it.. Thank you :)

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

@@dmitrymyshkov811 my pleasure

[@Nicosalgadophotography]

what do you do for portrait if you want to lessen the red from the skin?

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Hi Nico. I think there are a couple possibilities. I think it would best be done in AB or CL grids (with or without masking depending on the other colors in the image). In AB you could locate the red color in skin and desaturate or shift it and/or in CL grid go with the eye dropper to get to that reddish color slice and desaturate and/or lighten it there. The CL might be best to try as it seems more ‘surgical’

[@Nicosalgadophotography]

@@howardgrillphotography2280 ok thanks Howard will try that

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

@@Nicosalgadophotography let me know how it works out!

[@dmitrymyshkov811]

I tried to repeat this tool in other programs, but nothing worked at all. Davinci Resolve, Darktable etc. Magic program.

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

Hi Dmitry. Im not quite sure what you mean? The software integrates with Photoshop. I’m not sure about the others because I am cv a still photographer and have only ever used it with Photoshop.

[@dmitrymyshkov811]

@@howardgrillphotography2280 :) Before I even read your response, for some reason I immediately thought that I would meet with a misunderstanding of my comment, because I did not express my thought correctly. I meant that no other tool of other programs can reproduce the work of the tool 2d curves) And so there is no problem with the integration of the program. I, in general, use the program for Davinci Resolve, as in the last tools of Davinci itself I will not be able to reproduce the work 2d curves.

[@dmitrymyshkov811]

@@howardgrillphotography2280 Another tool that cannot be reproduced in other programs is the master. The opacity mode sliders. 1. they know how to adjust the opacity above 100%, as well as set negative values (below 0%). 2. In them you can separately adjust the opacity of the effect of the program by lum, hue and saturation. In davinci, you can only separate luminosity from color (hue+saturation), but not separately (hue from saturation). The blending mode is "color".

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

@@dmitrymyshkov811 I agree with you, it is quite unique!

[@howardgrillphotography2280]

@@dmitrymyshkov811 definitely a remarkable piece of software!