Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this?

Christopher Young · April 21st, 2019, 10:11 PM

Yes given certain tools and images manipulations you can create a whole range of looks without using LUTs. The following images are taken from the clip you referred to and have not been touched in Resolve. The skin tone alone in the second image has been adjusted purely using Colorista. Obviously the YouTube image is not a great one to manipulate so the quality isn't the best but it gives you an idea what good tools can do very quickly without having to use a qualifier or mask.

A useful tool for sorting out complimentary colors and their levels for schemes like orange and teal is the Adobe color app.

https://color.adobe.com/create

Select 'Complementary' on the left to see your complementary colors then select RGB on the lower left if you want to see what the individual RGB levels you are using once you have dialed in the scheme you like, dial using the circles on the color wheel. You can then use these values in other grading app to speed up the process.

A quick look at what Magic Bullet is capable of if you are newish to color grading. It is easier to get to grabs with than Resolve plus it has a whole stack of presets you may be able to use, which can of course be modified and saved as your presets.

Chris Young

Ryan Elder · April 22nd, 2019, 06:42 AM

Okay thanks. But if I want a look that requires separating the skin and coloring it a different color, what are the luts doing to the skin specifically to do that? I don't need to use luts but I need to know what the are doing specifically, so I can try to master it.

Christopher Young · April 23rd, 2019, 01:10 AM

As I said no LUTs involved in this example. If you look at the second picture you will see the changes to skin color have been achieved purely by selecting the skin tones and adjusting them in the Colorista control panel. The Colorista 3 and 4 way correctors are very discriminating in the manipulation of specific colors. In the second picture the 3-Way Color wheels show you that five values, 2 x Hue, 2 x Saturation and 1 x Lightness have been adjusted. That shows you exactly what the adjustment to those five values has done to the image. Now if you were to create a 3D LUT from the altered image those five values would now be embedded into your new LUT.

So what the new LUT is doing to your image totally reflects the changes you made to the skin tones and in answer to your question "...what are the luts doing to the skin specifically to do that?" is answered. The colors you changed and embedded into your new LUT are what is doing "that" to paraphrase the last part of your question.

The new LUT when applied would now apply those skin tone changes that you made and saved into your LUT to the new image... if the new image contained the skin tone values of your original image. In many ways I prefer not use LUTs and grade from the base image using the tools in Resolve and Red Giant and other OFX plugins that will work in OFX hosts such as Resolve.

Chris Young

Ryan Elder · April 23rd, 2019, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christopher Young

As I said no LUTs involved in this example. If you look at the second picture you will see the changes to skin color have been achieved purely by selecting the skin tones and adjusting them in the Colorista control panel. The Colorista 3 and 4 way correctors are very discriminating in the manipulation of specific colors. In the second picture the 3-Way Color wheels show you that five values, 2 x Hue, 2 x Saturation and 1 x Lightness have been adjusted. That shows you exactly what the adjustment to those five values has done to the image. Now if you were to create a 3D LUT from the altered image those five values would now be embedded into your new LUT.

So what the new LUT is doing to your image totally reflects the changes you made to the skin tones and in answer to your question "...what are the luts doing to the skin specifically to do that?" is answered. The colors you changed and embedded into your new LUT are what is doing "that" to paraphrase the last part of your question.

The new LUT when applied would now apply those skin tone changes that you made and saved into your LUT to the new image... if the new image contained the skin tone values of your original image. In many ways I prefer not use LUTs and grade from the base image using the tools in Resolve and Red Giant and other OFX plugins that will work in OFX hosts such as Resolve.

Chris Young

Okay thanks. When you say the skin tones have been selected and colored separately, that is exactly what I did in my footage, when I didn't use a lut. However, the skin tones were not extracted completely accurately, which is why I have color noise issues. How do you select them accurately, without noise, in a color grading program?

Christopher Young · April 23rd, 2019, 09:59 PM

Usually when you have noise issues as you describe it indicated that the 'strength' of the codec possibly combined with the actual bit path and color depth of your footage may all be contributing to the noise in the areas you are working especially if you are pushing the grade pretty hard in those areas you are making the changes. Even 10-bit 422 footage especially in 709 type files, i.e. not RAW or LOG files can show grading degradation when pushed too far. Generally RAW followed by LOG has the greatest ability to take serious grading. That's given the proviso that you can see what you are doing and as I mentioned before to ensure that what you are seeing isn't a result of your grade you really do need a 32-bit floating point work space outputting through a 10-bit 422 graphics path, graphics or video card capable of putting its output to a 10-bit display.

Even given that all of the hardware graphics path meets the 10-bit qualification if you are still seeing issues then you can be fairly sure the problems lie on your timeline and the software you are using. For example with both Premiere and Vegas there are color grading tools that work in 32-bit depth but there are in both of those bits of software some tools that are only working in 8-bit depth. If some of those 8-bit tools are used regardless of the fact you are working in a 10-bit space that footage will be processed in 8-bit color space. Then on your final output if you go back to a 10-bit color space you will suffer concatenation which is the inability of the 255 levels of your grade to translate correctly to the 10-bit color space of 1023 levels. This then becomes noticeable as banding with noise issues on gradient color changes. This can be a difficult enough issue to sort out on what exactly is causing noise issues when you have the equipment and software right in front of you let alone over a bunch of posts like this.

If working in 8-bit space I have often used a piece of software that is pretty good at keeping 8-bit color depth together. With this software you export a still from your timeline. This will generally be an 8-bit image. You then import this image into this software where you can now grade to get the result you want. Once you have a result you are happy with the software can then export a 3D LUT that works very well in 8-bit color spaces. You can download a trial of the software and give it a go and see if approaching the problem from this angle gives you any better results. Have a look at the following video and see if it's an approach that may work for you. I use it's color match tool to color match different cameras very quickly and simply and then export a LUT for the camera or cameras I need to have adjusted. Like any software there is a learning curve but this software has one of the most intuitive and quickest learning paths around and it can give your color grading a great boost in capability especially if working in 8-bit color. Check out for other tutorials on 3D LUT Creator Pro on the tube.

Chris Young

Ryan Elder · April 24th, 2019, 06:50 AM

Okay thanks, but when I apply LUTs that you download, I don't have noise issues, cause the luts that you download qualify the skin perfectly, and no issues.

So what are those luts doing differently, that they are doing better, compared to when I try qualifying the skin myself. Since downloaded luts work perfectly fine, it's not the footage, but something I am doing when trying to qualify.

Christopher Young · April 24th, 2019, 08:26 PM

Two things.

1. The LUTs you have downloaded sound like they were generated from well graded sources.
2. You haven't qualified what software, bit depth, graphics path etc you working with.

Maybe what you are attempting is beyond the tools you are using. Maybe something you are doing isn't the correct way to do it. For example Resolve has specifically recommended a particular order for grading steps to ensure best results. It's called the 'Grading Order of Operations.' serious moves away from the recommended order of steps does introduce various artifacts. With Resolve it is fairly easy is to follow these steps as they publish a chart showing them. I have never seen a grading workflow of recommended steps from any other video NLE or grading app. I'm not saying they don't exist. My experience though has been that if the Resolve grading workflow is used in other grading apps they tend to deliver the best results. Again this is a matter for exploration in your workflow using your chosen tools.

Chris Young

Ryan Elder · April 24th, 2019, 11:03 PM

I tried Resolve from that tutorial, but perhaps I didn't do everything completely right then. However, the color noise happens right when I separate the skin tones. So is there anything you can do after that will fix it, since it's already damaged once it's done, it seems? In that order of doing things though, it does not saying anything about separating the skin color, so it won't be colored along with the rest, in those steps though.

April 21st, 2019, 10:11 PM	#16
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,528	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? Yes given certain tools and images manipulations you can create a whole range of looks without using LUTs. The following images are taken from the clip you referred to and have not been touched in Resolve. The skin tone alone in the second image has been adjusted purely using Colorista. Obviously the YouTube image is not a great one to manipulate so the quality isn't the best but it gives you an idea what good tools can do very quickly without having to use a qualifier or mask. A useful tool for sorting out complimentary colors and their levels for schemes like orange and teal is the Adobe color app. https://color.adobe.com/create Select 'Complementary' on the left to see your complementary colors then select RGB on the lower left if you want to see what the individual RGB levels you are using once you have dialed in the scheme you like, dial using the circles on the color wheel. You can then use these values in other grading app to speed up the process. A quick look at what Magic Bullet is capable of if you are newish to color grading. It is easier to get to grabs with than Resolve plus it has a whole stack of presets you may be able to use, which can of course be modified and saved as your presets. Red Giant \| Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look - YouTube Chris Young Attached Thumbnails Last edited by Christopher Young; April 21st, 2019 at 11:01 PM.

April 22nd, 2019, 06:42 AM	#17
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,880	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? Okay thanks. But if I want a look that requires separating the skin and coloring it a different color, what are the luts doing to the skin specifically to do that? I don't need to use luts but I need to know what the are doing specifically, so I can try to master it.

April 23rd, 2019, 01:10 AM	#18
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,528	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? As I said no LUTs involved in this example. If you look at the second picture you will see the changes to skin color have been achieved purely by selecting the skin tones and adjusting them in the Colorista control panel. The Colorista 3 and 4 way correctors are very discriminating in the manipulation of specific colors. In the second picture the 3-Way Color wheels show you that five values, 2 x Hue, 2 x Saturation and 1 x Lightness have been adjusted. That shows you exactly what the adjustment to those five values has done to the image. Now if you were to create a 3D LUT from the altered image those five values would now be embedded into your new LUT. So what the new LUT is doing to your image totally reflects the changes you made to the skin tones and in answer to your question "...what are the luts doing to the skin specifically to do that?" is answered. The colors you changed and embedded into your new LUT are what is doing "that" to paraphrase the last part of your question. The new LUT when applied would now apply those skin tone changes that you made and saved into your LUT to the new image... if the new image contained the skin tone values of your original image. In many ways I prefer not use LUTs and grade from the base image using the tools in Resolve and Red Giant and other OFX plugins that will work in OFX hosts such as Resolve. Chris Young

April 23rd, 2019, 09:59 PM	#20
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,528	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? Usually when you have noise issues as you describe it indicated that the 'strength' of the codec possibly combined with the actual bit path and color depth of your footage may all be contributing to the noise in the areas you are working especially if you are pushing the grade pretty hard in those areas you are making the changes. Even 10-bit 422 footage especially in 709 type files, i.e. not RAW or LOG files can show grading degradation when pushed too far. Generally RAW followed by LOG has the greatest ability to take serious grading. That's given the proviso that you can see what you are doing and as I mentioned before to ensure that what you are seeing isn't a result of your grade you really do need a 32-bit floating point work space outputting through a 10-bit 422 graphics path, graphics or video card capable of putting its output to a 10-bit display. Even given that all of the hardware graphics path meets the 10-bit qualification if you are still seeing issues then you can be fairly sure the problems lie on your timeline and the software you are using. For example with both Premiere and Vegas there are color grading tools that work in 32-bit depth but there are in both of those bits of software some tools that are only working in 8-bit depth. If some of those 8-bit tools are used regardless of the fact you are working in a 10-bit space that footage will be processed in 8-bit color space. Then on your final output if you go back to a 10-bit color space you will suffer concatenation which is the inability of the 255 levels of your grade to translate correctly to the 10-bit color space of 1023 levels. This then becomes noticeable as banding with noise issues on gradient color changes. This can be a difficult enough issue to sort out on what exactly is causing noise issues when you have the equipment and software right in front of you let alone over a bunch of posts like this. If working in 8-bit space I have often used a piece of software that is pretty good at keeping 8-bit color depth together. With this software you export a still from your timeline. This will generally be an 8-bit image. You then import this image into this software where you can now grade to get the result you want. Once you have a result you are happy with the software can then export a 3D LUT that works very well in 8-bit color spaces. You can download a trial of the software and give it a go and see if approaching the problem from this angle gives you any better results. Have a look at the following video and see if it's an approach that may work for you. I use it's color match tool to color match different cameras very quickly and simply and then export a LUT for the camera or cameras I need to have adjusted. Like any software there is a learning curve but this software has one of the most intuitive and quickest learning paths around and it can give your color grading a great boost in capability especially if working in 8-bit color. Check out for other tutorials on 3D LUT Creator Pro on the tube. Chris Young 3D LUT Creator Introduction 2016 - YouTube

April 24th, 2019, 06:50 AM	#21
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,880	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? Okay thanks, but when I apply LUTs that you download, I don't have noise issues, cause the luts that you download qualify the skin perfectly, and no issues. So what are those luts doing differently, that they are doing better, compared to when I try qualifying the skin myself. Since downloaded luts work perfectly fine, it's not the footage, but something I am doing when trying to qualify.

April 24th, 2019, 08:26 PM	#22
Christopher Young Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 1,528	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? Two things. 1. The LUTs you have downloaded sound like they were generated from well graded sources. 2. You haven't qualified what software, bit depth, graphics path etc you working with. Maybe what you are attempting is beyond the tools you are using. Maybe something you are doing isn't the correct way to do it. For example Resolve has specifically recommended a particular order for grading steps to ensure best results. It's called the 'Grading Order of Operations.' serious moves away from the recommended order of steps does introduce various artifacts. With Resolve it is fairly easy is to follow these steps as they publish a chart showing them. I have never seen a grading workflow of recommended steps from any other video NLE or grading app. I'm not saying they don't exist. My experience though has been that if the Resolve grading workflow is used in other grading apps they tend to deliver the best results. Again this is a matter for exploration in your workflow using your chosen tools. Chris Young Attached Thumbnails

April 24th, 2019, 11:03 PM	#23
Ryan Elder also known as Ryan Wray Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Saskatoon, Canada Posts: 2,880	Re: Does anyone know how to make LUTs better than this? I tried Resolve from that tutorial, but perhaps I didn't do everything completely right then. However, the color noise happens right when I separate the skin tones. So is there anything you can do after that will fix it, since it's already damaged once it's done, it seems? In that order of doing things though, it does not saying anything about separating the skin color, so it won't be colored along with the rest, in those steps though.