What Are the Main Types of LUTs You Can Choose?

Look-Up Tables re an ingenious way of adding life to just about any LOG or flat footage.

It helps add colour, contrast, and style to the shot. Film LUTs also help convert the footage back to a Rec.709 colour space.

These days, film are compatible with so many applications like Adobe Photoshop (CS6 and +), DaVinci Resolve, Assimilate Scratch, Sony Vegas (12 and +), and so many more. Some change the colour, while others the saturation and contrast

With the UK film industry spending over £1.95 billion on film production in 2019, the significance of film is only magnifying. Here, we discuss different LUTs available.

Viewing

A viewing will make sure that the camera’s output looks good during the shoot. It transforms a flat Log C or S-Log to Rec.709. This transformation makes the footage more aesthetically appealing. These are created for the Directors and are the starting point of editing.

Calibrating

A calibration is more of a display or correction rather than a creative one. It helps calibrate and correct any errors in the display. It also makes sure that the projector sticks to the standard colour space. It may be described as a display or monitoring.

Transformation

As the name suggests, this is where the magic happens. A transformation converts the colour of the image according to the specifications. So, you could transform the colour from Rec.709 to DCI-P3.

A 1D can help adjust contrast, brightness, and black/white levels. This limits your editing abilities, as you cannot adjust individual colours. And that’s where 3x 1D film come into the picture. They allow you to tweak the reds, blues, and greens individually. While the 1D does not offer too many options for mixing, it does offer colour space conversions and colour grading.

3D can easily overcome the limitations of a 1D. 3D require only 262,144 values in contrast to the 1,073,741,824 values of a 1D So, you may wonder why 3D is still the preferred option.

To answer that, you need to understand the complexity of colour behaviour. Colours are not an exact science. They can be erratic, random, and even erroneous. Besides, colours tend to mix and interact with each other. Therefore you need a system that allows you to interpolate rather than tweak individual colours.

Other Types

Most media companies have designed theme-specific wonderfully with virtually any image or footage. Some of them are:

Winter

This allows you to capture the true essence of a snowy winter by capturing every nuance of nature in the footage.

Atmospheric

A combination of four different can be used in just about any scene. They work well with popular types of camera LOG profiles.

Night Blue

By using contrast S-curve adjustments, the night blue brings colour to your night footage.

Nature

With up to 10 well-designed, the nature enhances the natural environment in any flat footage. It is designed, bearing in mind the natural skin tones and colours of nature.

Stunt

Power-packed with over 30 help you create action-packed, fast-paced scenes and bring them to life. Whether it’s an action film or thrilling race footage, this will have viewers on the edge of their seats at all times.

Films and images become life-like. They are mathematical formulas that enhance the colour, contrast, brightness, and calibration of the footage. They can be technical and each one allows you to capture the true essence of the scene.