Lumetri Colors NOT exporting correctly

I was having a similar problem. Lumetri effects applied to the masterclip were not looking as expected when I exported the master clips as transcoded files for dailies viewing. What I discovered was that the wrong input LUT was being applied by Media Encoder. This happened because I followed some advice, found both elsewhere on this forum and out in the wild internet.

The problematic way:

Here is an example of the approach that caused my problems:

New Lumetri Color Lut Issue ​

Not to single this person out, I found this advice in multiple places.

This is a problematic way to add custom LUTs. For whatever reason, Premiere Pro and Media Encoder don't look at the names of the LUTs in the default package contents folder, they communicate by referencing the LUT's position in the list.

For example, in Premiere's default Technical LUT drop down menu "Phantom_Rec709_Gamma.cube" is the eighth item. If we add "Panasonic_V-log_to_Rec709.cube" to the Premiere package contents, i.e. </Applications/Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018/Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018.app/Contents/Lumetri/LUTs/Technical>, that will become the eighth item in the menu (as decreed by The Immutable Order of the Alphabet), and the Phantom LUT becomes number nine because number eight is already taken.

OK, so far, so good.

When we select the Panasonic LUT in Input LUT dropdown menu, the Lumetri effect will store a reference to the eighth LUT and our Panasonic VariCam footage will look good in Premiere.

The trouble starts when we send it to the Adobe Media Encoder queue. The eighth item in Media Encoder's Technical LUT dropdown menu is still "Phantom_Rec709_Gamma.cube" because we didn't add the Panasonic LUT to AME's package contents. The footage looks wrong because it is now the Phantom Input LUT that is applied by AME in the Lumetri effect. Media Encoder doesn't know about the Panasonic LUT.  The actual Panasonic LUT itself does not follow the footage from Premiere to Media Encoder, just the number eight.

OK, a little bit of a pain, but no problem, right? We just add the custom LUT to the Media Encoder package contents, as well. Right?

Sure.

Now imagine we shoot some more footage, this time with a BlackMagic camera. No problem, we just add "BlackMagic_log_to_709.cube" to the Premiere Pro package contents so that it will appear in the drop down menu when we color correct the BlackMagic footage. You see where this has gone? Hint: Now, the Panasonic LUT is number nine and "D-21_delogC_EI0200_B1.cube" is number eight.

So, now we look back at our Panasonic VariCam footage in Premiere Pro. Guess which LUT is applied to all our Lumetri effects for the Panasonic footage we spent a day correcting. If you said "D-21_delogC_EI0200_B1.cube" you are right. Now let's go through and change the Input LUT in every Panasonic masterclip.

The easy way:

The proper custom LUT folders are in the path specified about a third of the way down this page "New features summary for the July and April 2018 releases of Adobe Premiere Pro CC. As far as I can tell, this is the only documentation of this feature.

In my install, I actually had to create the <LUTs/Creative> and <LUTs/Technical> folders in the <Common> folder. Putting the custom LUTs here adds them to all the Creative LUT and Input LUT dropdown menus, respectively,  across all CC applications (PP, AME, AE, etc.),  keeps the LUT references correct when transcoding files, and seems to preserve the LUT relationships with Lumetri effects within Premiere Pro even after adding or deleting other custom LUTs.

What hardware do you have, what media and other effects are used, and what export settings?

How do your exports look re-imported into PrPro?

Neil