Lumetri - Can I apply an existing colour palette?

[True Lies Ltd.]

Apologies for how naive or rudimentary this probably sounds to those with far more experience, but I've recently become more interested in colour grading and as I'm also very new to the concept of colour palettes I'm curious to know if there's a way to apply an existing film's colour palette to clips of my own. As I say, I'm very new to grading so I'm slowly learning the basics but the more I've explored the world of video colouring I've been amazed to discover how a still frame from any film can be broken down into the colours that were used to professionally grade it. Roxy Radulescu's website MoviesInColor(dot)com has a stunning collection of famous movie stills accompanied by the spectrum of individual colours that were used to give them their signature look. I suppose my question is - if these scenes are primarily built on a set of particular colours is there potentially a way that I could input the same colours of a favourite film scene into Lumetri using a colour-picker to then apply them to clips of my own. Obviously I don't expect them to look identical since I appreciate how cameras, lenses, locations, lighting are all factors that would need to be carefully replicated to achieve the exact same look, but I'd find it a fascinating learning exercise that would likely help me to understand the building blocks of elements that I may or may not want to achieve in my own future colour grades.

I realise what a naive question this may be to those with significantly more grading expertise but many thanks in advance from an enthusiastic novice.

Credit: MoviesInColor(dot)com

Credit: MoviesInColor(dot)com

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

That could be done by building a "look" with a series of stacked Lumetri effects, especially using the HSL Secondaries, where you can select a color/tonal range and then modify that towards something else. Now ... capturing multiple Lumetri instances into one savable Look can be a bit of work.

You'd need to use something like LUT Buddy from Red Giant (Red Giant | Downloads ) which I believe is still free, and install that, then there's a process easy to do but takes explaining to create a LUT you can then apply via LUT Buddy to emulate the entire look of the other grading stack.

Or of course, there are both free and for-purchase LUTs and Looks files available from numerous sources to use to emulate a particular type of Look. In fact, PrPro ships with a number of LUTs & Looks designed to be used with Lumetri. Check what's available from the Creative tab's LUT/Look dropdown list ... you can scroll through those.

Also, check in the Effects panel, second section down is "Lumetri Presets", with several sub-sections. You can of course start with any Preset or LUT/Look and modify to taste.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

Oh ... another way, really cool ... uses Adobe's Capture app for mobile devices. Using that, you can take a picture of say a sunset, floral arrangement, anything with a range of tones you'd like to work with, and it will give you a number of samples applying different subsets of the tones of the image to a test image. Choose the one you like, name it, and save it to your "Library" in Adobe's "Cloud" ... and then access that from the Library panel of PrPro. As you can see, I've got a few here ...

And it shows the tones left to right that are most predominant.

Neil

[stefan_gru]

Perry: To piggyback off of Neil's comment about using Adobe Capture, take a look at these tutorials:

Get a great look for your video

Capture color themes | Adobe Creative Cloud Mobile Apps Tutorials

[True Lies Ltd.]

Thank you R Neil Haugen​ and Stefan Gruenwedel​ for putting me in exactly the direction I was hoping. Particularly the Adobe Capture tool which I have plans to begin using immediately.

As dynamic and versatile and as I've found Lumetri I haven't been so overwhelmed with the results I've had applying its presets to my flat Canon 7D footage (although it seems to do a much nicer job on C300 and FS7 clips), so you're right - it's good to a apply a couple of things then tweak to taste.

But the LUT Buddy and tutorial suggestions will certainly get me off to a good start. Many thanks for your advice.

[shooternz]

to my flat Canon 7D footage

Are you shooting "flat" with your 7D?  Why?  Does it shoot RAW?

[R Neil Haugen]

Starting with "flat" footage ... is that using a built-in quasi-log setting, or flat camera settings for contrast/saturation?

This brings up a couple things, I'll start with camera settings, then go into using Lumetri ​properly​ with full Log media.

I shoot a Panny GH3, and when they first came out, a LOT of users were going to absolute flat settings ... bottom available settings for contrast & saturation ... coming out of the camera it looked very "log-ish" and they thought it should grade well then. However, it didn't.

It's 8-bit capture, as are most all DSLR's. Shooting totally flat just lost too much data. Trying to bring it back via grading resulted in weirdness abundant. Artifacts all over the place, weird colors/hues, "chunky" skin tones ... a bunch of yuck.

However, recording it to the lower side for contrast and saturation (but not bottoming the settings) did keep the both widest dynamic range possible and the camera from over-saturating certain colors, which it tended to do (like most DSLRs). Finding the "sweet spot" where it kept a wide DR but didn't ​lose​ tones, and keeping just enough saturation so that you actually got color recorded ​without​ over-saturation was the trick.

Also ... some DSLRs with built-in Log settings ... because of the 8-bit minimalist color depth ... don't produce really great media for grading. Such as the Panny GH4 ... it's Log setting is very limited in shooting situations it works well in.

I know a number of Canon DSLR shooters who've abandoned using a total "log" look in-cam also.

​Log media in Lumetri​

Okay ... Lumetri has a simply ​wrong!​ implementation of Log tech LUTs. Note that the location of that Input Lut in Lumetri's Basic tab is at the top ... and in the order of internal processing, Lumetri is very linear top-to-bottom. So that means any tech LUT applied there is applied before the controls within the Basic tab. Bass-ackwards.

All camera companies (and ​all​ other pro post-processing software) apply the tech LUTs ​after​ the control set for the ... node? layer? operation? ... that includes the LUT. Because that is how the camera companies build the LUTs to be used!

The camera makers shoot in a tightly controlled studio situation ... color balance & exposure/contrast set in the lighting ... and then produce a LUT to mate the flat Log recorded image "pop" back to full contrast/saturation. If you're going to get the same result in use, ​you have to feed that tech LUT properly exposed, contrast-adjusted, color-balanced signal!​

In Resolve, for instance, any time you apply a LUT in a "node", it is ​always​ processed after everything else you do in that node. So you drop on a LUT for your log media, and then adjust the Lift/Gamma/Gain/Saturation controls and maybe do a wheels or curves adjustment for color balance to get the clip to 'neutral', the first step of any grading process.

Every one of those actions is applied to the media first, then that result is fed ​through​ the LUT, and you see the results of that on the program monitor and scopes. Back to Lumetri ...

If you're using a LUT for reclaiming Log footage, it must go in the Creative tab's "Look" slot, at the top of the Creative tab. Then go back to the Basic tab and adjust Black and White points, "Exposure" (which is a sort of mashup of "gamma" and contrast/brightness), Highlights against Shadows (they both work too wide a section of the tonal range so you need to work them ​against​ each other), Temp & Tint & Saturation.

If you don't have a manufacturer or other LUT for a flat/semi-flat or Log camera setting, I'd recommend shooting a very controlled scene (studio if you can) with the camera settings for the way you shoot (Log setting or flat settings) and ​nailed​ for exposure/white-balance. Take that into Lumetri, and use primarily the Curves or Color wheels panels to get the media to a nice tonal range, maybe an HSL Secondary if you need to coax some bit of saturation or tonal control into place.

Then save that as a .cube from Lumetri's fly-out menu up by the name of Lumetri in the top tab (three little bars, right-click them). Name it probably with a 1 or an A as the first part of the name, and save it in Program Files/Adobe/Premiere Pro 2017/Lumetri/LUTs/Creative folder. Close out of PrPro.

Now, go back into PrPro, and go to the Creative tab in Lumetri, hit the drop-down arrow, and your fist option should be that LUT. Set it.

Then go back up to the Basic tab and see if you can neutralize the clip to a good look ... and better than you got otherwise.

I would note, using a Tangent Ripple control surface and re-mapping the Basic tab as I've done, makes using Lumetri vastly faster, more intuitive, and ... gives better results.

Neil