Rec 709 lut for canon c100 Mark 2 for premiere pro 2020

[The great dog Chippie]

I have looked everywhere on adobe site and downloaded tons of lookup tables that don't work. I need a simple rec 709 for my footage for the canon log gamma  for the canon c100 mark ii to use on my footage in premiere pro.... any help would be appreciated.

[R Neil Haugen]

Colorist's call LUTs 'the dumbest math out there" ... for a reason. They're very useful for certain things but don't know or care about mucking up your pixels. And they will if you don't have an appropriate one, and even then, if your clip doesn't exactly match the exposure and contrast the LUT was prepared under and for.

Reading online, not a lot of people are thrilled with most of the 'official' LUTs for the C100, but also say it's pretty easy to make good ones yourself.

You can roll your own in Lumetri easily and quickly, and make a series of them for your shooting situation. The C100 produced a very "normal" log rolloff, so it's pretty easy to use the controls in Lumetri to stretch it back out to "normal" appearance.

Start with scopes up, Waverform in either RGB or YC no chroma. Use the Basic tab's exposure control to get the middle of the displayed signal in the scope centered on the 50% middle line (left side scale). Then use Contrast to widen out the image to as full a range as you want.

Season with shadow and highlight controls, add Saturation and maybe Vibrance from the Creative tab.

When you have a 'full' image, then use the Lumetri panel 3-bar menu to save yourself a .cube LUT. Make several, named for whether they're for low or higher contrast scenes. The whole process takes me 2-5 minutes.

To use them, I suggest applying LUTs from the Creative tab's dropdown slot, as then you can 'trim' the clip using the Basic tab tonal controls to fit within the LUT, and also use the 'amount' control of the Creative tab's LUT slot to adjust the amount of the effect of the LUT.

Or alternatively, rather than making LUTs, simply save each iteration as a Lumetri preset. Fast to apply in bulk to batches of clips, fully adjustable later.

Neil

[FMG831]

Wow Neil thanks for the gems you just dropped. I will be using these steps.

[chrisw44157881]

edit the canon lut in notepad and change the top line “LUT_3D_INPUT_RANGE 0.0 1.0” into a comment by adding a # sign (so it becomes # LUT_3D_INPUT_RANGE 0.0 1.0). will make native canon luts work in Premiere, or you can download some pre-modified ones from abelcine that has a link under articles/blog-and-knowledge/tutorials-and-guides/canon-luts

[The great dog Chippie]

Thanks very much Neil. I am not looking to create a creative lut in premiere. I just want to download the approapriate rec 709 technical lut as a baseline for color correction and grading my canon log footage. Thank you Cris for your suggestion also. I tried the Abel cine site and they have hundreds of supposed techical 709 luts and I found one for the canon log c which is the standard Lut for canon c100 mark 2 camera. However, when I tried to use it. it was way over saturated and obviosley not the right rec 709 lut. The one I used from the site is listed below. I know there are appropriate rec 709 luts for every camera. I just cant find the right one for the canon c100 mark ii  for my canon log footage. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. Thanks

CinemaGamut_CanonLog-to-BT709_BT709_33_FF_Ver.1.1_AC

[chrisw44157881]

canon just came out with 2022 luts if you want to try those on usa.canon

do you have color management setup as well?

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/faq-how-to-fix-saturated-over-exposed-hlg-cl...

[The great dog Chippie]

Hi Cris I have premiere pro 14.9 build 52 installed, so maybe that is why I have my color management section greyed out. I will upgrade to 15 but I hesitate because of the problems people have had with newer versions of premiere pro.

[R Neil Haugen]

I wasn't suggesting making a "look" LUT, simply making your own normalization LUT. As most colorists I work with do.

It's easy to do, and again you can make them for different exposure and contrast situations. As one LUT does not fit all situations  ... period.

And it's best to apply any LUT via the Creative tab's LUT slot, for two reasons.

First, with the LUT applied in the Creative tab, you can go to the Basic tab's tonal and saturation controls and trim the clip to fit the LUTs "shape". This is proper colorist's process. And avoids clipped, crushed, and/ or over-saturated pixels.

And second, you can dial the LUTs effect up or down also.

I don't ever recommend applying any LUT in the Basic tab. The processing order is simply WRONG. And I've finally got the engineers considering switching the LUT to the bottom of the Basic tab. Which would be a big improvement. Useful finally.

I work with and teach a bunch of colorists. Most make their own tech LUTs. They'll apply the manufacturer's LUT to a ramp and a couple charts, see what it does. Then make several that will work better for different practical uses.

Most tech LUTs are rather simple things. Especially compared to say a well cooked transform process.

And in far less time than you've spent looking for "the perfect LUT" you could have made several of them to fit all your needs. Simply being practical here.

Neil

[The great dog Chippie]

Thanks Neil.  I will give it a shot. I was just so impressed with the another cameras log conversion to rec 709 that I was hoping it would be the same for the footage for canon 100 mark ii. Well I guess that is not to be. What was nice about that rec 709 lut is that you could compare it with what you create from a baseline and then make decisions from there because you know what it is suppose to be when viewed  on a TV or some other media screens.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Any LUT is realistically built for one situation. The one that the media used to create it was shot in. So ... for a perfectly lit and exposed scene, with totally controlled proper contrast and color ... it works perfectly.

And for some other scenes, can do horrid things to those poor pixels.

Colorists refer to LUTs as "the dumbest math out there" for a reason. Don't get me wrong, for certain things they are either amazingly useful or absolutely necessary. But if you can get a good transform process in software, the math there is a LOT "higher" than a LUT.

That's why you should never use a LUT in the Basic tab slot as most colorist's would see it. Because you can't trim the clip's pixels into the LUT, with controls applied prior to the LUT. You are at the mercy of the LUT for clipped whites, crushed blacks, or under/over-saturated colors you can't really resucitate afterwards.

Now ... Premiere has a new transform for Panny S-log3.cine, and if it actually "sees" your FX6 clip as such, and you apply that transform option ... it does things I can't match to 'normalize' that log-encoded clip into Rec.709. I spent like three hours on Thursday trying to match with the controls ... and there were things it was doing to stretch out different color highlights, for example, that were gorgeous ... and I simply could not match.

Premiere simply hasn't had the inbuilt color processes that could outperform me. I was ... extremely pleased ... to see that high quality of a transform. Especially with as much broken bits as their new color management system has had. That was very cheering.

I'm hoping we can get more of those in the app.

Neil

[chrisw44157881]

that's a great post, and many people don't realize luts don't just expect luma contrast, but pre-determined saturation, and chroma. if chippie shoots at a different contrast ratio than when the lut was created/designed, it may be more beneficial to create his custom lut with a color chart. the one bad thing about grading under is a lut is that you don't have control over the chroma, only luma and saturation. so, even in a perfect world, you're only grading at 66% efficiency, which is fine if you don't need non-linear chroma reponse.

[miguel_0929]

Hey! Have you found a reasonable solution? I'm having the same problem with the rec709 luts provided by canon, once I apply them, boom, utter mess. 

[R Neil Haugen]

No possible way to even suggest something, Miguel ... as you don't give us any context.

Which version in full numerical detail of Premiere are you using? There's been several major upgrades over the last couple cycles, so depending on the specific version you've got, the settings available and needed have changed.

What specific camera log format are you using? For what specific cameras?

And what color management settings are you using in Premiere? 

Given the above answers,  I can tell you how to setup for a LUT normalization log->linear.

And a question ... if you are using the newly released 25.x, why are you wanting to use LUTs rather than the mathematically superior algorithms for log->linear normalization?

The initial look of the algo's are of course slightly different. But that is because all transforms, including manufacturer LUTs, have as much 'aesthetic' choices as technical ones. Neither better nor worse, just slightly different.

The algorithms are vastly better at covering a far wider range of real-world camera production than any LUT. Period.

If using a LUT, proper colorist training is to always have a node/layer/effect prior to the LUT, so you can trim exposure/contrast/saturation of the clip "into" what the LUT was designed for. The algos pretty much obliterate that need.

[miguel_0929]

Good evening Neil, 

I'm sorry I got confused.

I'm using a Canon C100 mk ii and shooting c-log. I know the codec is not very robust as we're talking 8 bit, 440.

What happens is that once I apply the specific rec 709 lut supplied by canon my values spread so much that my highlights get clipped, shadows crushed and a lot of noise is introduced. I can make it alright after tweaking a few parameters but I get much better results by not using the lut and adjusting the image by myself.

I've read all your previous replies on this thread and you already helped me. 

Thank you.

[R Neil Haugen]

I work for/with/teach pro colorists. Most of whom say 8 bit should not be shot in log, as you don't have enough data bits to properly expand the image.

All transform and normalization LUTs are "built" for a specific scene contrast and camera settings setup. So unless your scene is "as expected" for lighting contrast, AND your camera settings meet expected exposure levels, the LUT will not "work" as expected.

So for all LUT based normalization, you must apply the LUT, then go to controls processed before the LUT, and "trim" the clip's exposure, contrast, and saturation to fit the needs of the LUT.

In Lumetri, apply the LUT in the Creative Tab Look slot, then use the Basic tab controls to trim.

I do not recommend usingthe Input LUT process in Premiere.

Truthfully, you would be better off shooting standard Rec.709 unless you can get 10 bit log files.

And if so, the normalization algorithms in 25.x Premiere are better at the conversion to linear than any LUT, as in safer for your pixels.