Stacking lumetri on adjustment layers - what order?

[Alan_Silvester]

Hi all, I think this will be a relatively quick one. I've managed to confuse myself into worring that I've been doing things wrong and wanted to get some clarity. 

I do very simple grades in PP. My process has been to stack Adjustment layers renamed as LUT, GRADE etc. That way I can easily turn layers on and off without having to drill down into one layer, or the video layer to find the different adjustments. It also feels a bit cleaner being able to name, colour and structure them visually in the timeline rather than have to go into the effects panel and twirl down each lumetri that's stacked on one layer/video track. 

My issue is really about the order of the stack. It'd usually go sothing like this:

V3 - adjustment layer grade applied via lumetri color 

V2 - adjustment layer with correction LUT applied via lumetri color (no grade or creative appilied) 

V1 - video (often in log signal) 

I was always of the understanding that the LUT should come last, so with the grade layer on the top of the stack, PP was driling down first though my creative corrections (V3) and finally applying the destructive LUT (V2) at the end, is this right? 

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. 

Cheers

[Alan_Silvester]

Sooo, in the absence of any responses I think I might have solved my own issue...and it looks like I've been doing it wrong, for years! Arrrggghhh!!! 

I layered my LUT and grade on one adjustment layer with the LUT at the bottom as my baseline. This is the way most tutorials recommend. I then did my 2 adjustment layer trick, one with the LUT and one with the grade. When the LUT was on track 3 the grade matched the baseline as if it were on one adjustment layer. When the LUT was on track 2 the grade looked different, not as good! This is a revalation, if not a little frustrating! 

neatvideo I found this article from neat video and maybe this is the reason? If PP renders upwards then technically the grade being first (track 2) and the LUT being second (track 3). Thus the LUT is last if it's at the top of the stack of layers. The direction of travel within an effect is down, but for layers it's up!?!?!?!

If any of this makes sense to anyone please help me as I think I'm right but very tired.  

[Ann Bens]

If you followed NeatVideo's blog, you will be ok.

[Matthew23202776x5xr]

Wait a minute. Did you do it correctly? I think I'm confused on the wordplay here.

Adjustment layer with Creative LUT (style LUT) = V3

Adjustment layer with a Log Transform (Log to rec709 LUT) = V2

Any exposure/contrast adjustments happen on the actual clip = baseline V1

This is the way Neat Video explains and apparently the way you are doing it. Why do you think you are doing it wrong?

[Alan_Silvester]

Hi @Matthew23202776x5xr The answer fom @R Neil Haugen really helped me undserstand the order. I always put the corrective LUT - Log to rec709 (or whatever is needed for your workflow) on the top of the layer stack in the timeline. So that would be V3 in this example. Any colour correction or creative work I put underneath that LUT layer on V2. As Neil points out, PP is reading the video tracks from V1 upwards, hence V3 technically below V2. 

I think the confusion is that within each Lumetri effect, PP reads from top to bottom. So while the visual in the timeline for V1/V2/V3 is going upwards, the reading of each V1/V2/V3 effect is going downwards. 

As I said @R Neil Haugen nailed it clearly, so please ignore my additinon if it adds confusion! 

[R Neil Haugen]

Yup, knowing the order of processing is crucial.

Within any track, the process is TOP-DOWN as things appear in the Effects Control Panel for that track.

Between tracks, they processing is in order of track number. So V1 is processed before V2 before V3 and on. An effect on V3 is always added to the results after the processing of any effects on V1 then V2.

EXCEPT ... if Track Matte Effect is used!

Then it's really ... different. The track matte effect is kinda outside everything. 

So ... dupe the clip up twice, or maybe add a different video you'll mask in via the track matte on V3. Use Lumetri's HSL tab to set a mask, using black/white as the settings, and LEAVE THE MASK ON.

Go to V2, apply the track matte effect, setting it to Luminance and from V3.

Now, on V2, do some say Lumetri changes. Those will only be applied to the pixels 'coming through the mask' on V3, but ... taking both the starting point and result of the processing FROM and TO the clip on V1.

Practice it. You can do amazing things in color people insist Premiere can't do. Jarle Leirpoll shows how to use this to say have a graphic or text on V1, and a different video involved in the stack, and the other video comes through the masked graphic item. 

IF you get this down, it's pretty amazing.

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

Premiere Pro's processing order is pretty straight-forward if ... visually backwards at times.

Effects Applied Directly On Clips

ON a clip, in the Effects Control Panel (ECP) ... the order is always top down. Upper effect processed first, and so on going down the list top to bottom.

Even within Lumetri, nearly all processes are processed in the order they appear. Including the controls within a tab and the tabs themselves. So Basic tab is processed before other tabs, and within Basic tab, it's still top down.

Effects applied via Adjustment Layers

This is where it can be confusing. If you use multiple ALs, the lowest one is processed first, then the next one up ... and so on.

So with a clip on V1, any effects applied to the clip are processed as above. THEN any effects from the lowest track AL ... then if there's more ALs above, going up one at a time bottom to top.

However ... within any AL, the processing is STILL done top down. So the items in Basic of an AL are like unto the clip use, processed before the Creative tab. And if you have multiple Lumetri on an AL, then the top one is processed first ... and on down.

Neil