I do have a tutoring service to help people work with their footage so if you are struggling please reach out via email. Glad I could help. :)

It's a way to convert, but it is not the same as a color space transform. Luts are an individual's interpretation of color given by a specific model camera, lenses, etc. and generally the goal is to provide nice colors. Sometimea the result isn't what you expect because your model and lenses will be different from whatever was used for the lut creation. A conversion using color space transforms is purely mathematical without any personal interpretation or beautification of the color. Neither is necessarily better than the other, just different.

thanks Tony!

When you use the Color Transform node, are your project settings also set for Color Management or is that overkill (for instance, set to Davinci YRGB Color Managed and Wide Gamut with Output Color Space set to Rec 709 in Project Settings).

I'll be doing a video on using ACES with vlog in the very near future. You can also run vlog through red ipp2 if your want which I think gives a lot of really nice starting points for rec709!

@@TonyDae Cool to hear that you will do a video about ACES, soon. I use ACES even for my iPhone when filming in Log-2 of Filmic Pro, using one of the IDTs built into DR. And, even for my Nikon D810 I managed to install a Log-like picture profile that I can use with ACES in Post. With an iPhone or also iPad colors become unbelievingly good and comparable to the S1H. Waiting for your tutorial!

ACES has some really great things going for it. My only real complaint is the AP1 gamut is too dang small for neon/LED lights and some gamuts used by certain cameras. The Pocket 4K footage I have was not usable in ACES before the new Gen 5 color release and enabling the gamut compression option in raw because reds in Gen 4 would go out of gamut and become irrecoverable, even when using the LMT that is supposed to fix issues like this via ACES AP0/Linear + LMT. ACES needs a new AP2 gamut that is as wide as say, Red Wide Gamut RGB, to avoid clipping issues. Other than this gamut problem and the need for IDT's that match right (you can do a work around by transforming from source gamut/gamma to red wide gamut RGB/Log3g10 THEN ACES IDT), I really like ACES a lot. I will get on the tutorial very soon, right now I am fumbling trying to learn HDR grading...

@@TonyDae Hi Tony, I came across this ugly effect just 2 days ago when testing the new S1H auto focus update by shoting in my home office with 2 water bottles on my desk made of dark blue transparent plastic lit by Neon light. The blue got complety oversaturated and went into color clipping as if I had a 20 years old digital camera. I guess this was exactly what you are talking about. Just one question. What dou you mean by "You can also run vlog through red ipp2..." in you recent comment? Not sure what exactlyyou mean. Thanks so much for your great help!

@@joyoffilming9500 Send me an email. Address is in the ABOUT section.

Cined is a rec709 profile. There is a trick you can do by using color space treatment nodes into arri logc/arri gamut then using the arri log c to rec709 lut in resolve. Grade between the lut and cst node. This always gave me good results

Ok will try. I would enjoy seeing a tutorial on this! Thanks

@@marknox3703 Send me an email

If you're still struggling send me an email

@@TonyDae Thank you

@@TonyDae hi Tony, whats best way to get ahold of you?

@@kevinbatts2804 Since 3 years ago how'd this turn out Kevin?

They're not my shots :)

@@TonyDae ha ha

I am glad this could help you out! You can use a node based workflow to create a 3D LUT in Resolve that you can use in Premiere. Or you can try to use the Cinematch plugin as it is similar to a color space transform.

@@TonyDae I’ll look in to that, thanks so much again. You have no idea what you just did to my production quality, thanks again! So many people would tell me I was amazing but my color grading was the only thing holding me back. If there’s anything I can ever buy from you I would happily purchase to support haha

I am very happy that I could help you. This is exactly the reason why I created this channel in the first place. Just being here helps support the channel, but if you would like to contribute a little extra, please consider joining the Patreon community at Patreon.com/tonydae.

Contact me via email given in the about section of my channel.

If you use a proper corrective lut, you should be fine. This is a response to people trying to manually correct vlog and complaining that the colors are bad and therefore the camera has bad color science or is broken.

@@TonyDae ah! I understand. Thank you so much.

The only LUTs I use that I haven't created are the Red IPP2 Luts and the Arri Rec709 LUT because of the way they map certain colors and the shoulder, but footage needs to be transformed in Arri Wide Gamut/Arri Log C or Red wide gamut RGB/Log 3g10 first. The only time I will usually use these LUTs is on quick turnaround projects. Other LUTs I create myself or are designed like LMT's to work within certain color spaces such as Arri Log C, Log 3g10, or ACES. The reasons I do not like to use LUTs often is because they have a destructive workflow (information output truncates some values), they only can be generated for specific output color spaces, and they generally are created to transform specific cameras or color spaces into another specific color space making them more difficult to use in certain situations. Most people are outputting to rec709, however, with color management you can much more easily output to other color spaces such as rec2020, DCI-P3 and with color management you can much more easily mix and match shots from different cameras and work within the same color space for each. This is due to mathematically transforming each cameras color and gamma into rec709 rather than a subjective interpretation. If you have footage from a Canon, Sony, and Panasonic camera, you can transform each to a working color space (Arri Log C for example) then output to rec709. You can grade within the Log C color space and get a more consistent and accurate result that matches from each camera than using LUTs and grading within their own individual color spaces and gammas. ACES is another form of color management that pipes any footage fed into it to a mathematical transform that should create the same initial look and color corrections for any camera giving you consistent results than can be transformed with LMT's, as long as the camera has a proper input device transform. ACES also allows you to output to different color spaces for large post production work flows that include multiple VFX vendors by allowing CG color space output transforms. There's a lot to say on it, but I hope this helps.

@@TonyDae Wow this answer was way mor in-depth than I expected. Thanks a lot!

@@TonyDae Hi Tony, appears to me you are one of the very few true expertes here as you exactly describe the major diffrence between color space transformation which, ideally, is a mathematical and reversible (!) transformation while a LUT is just a huge table to look up input color, sat, and light values and turn those pixel by pixel into new values. Needless to say that this process is lossy and cannot be reversed in later process stages. Why do many people like LUTs so much, anyway? The answer is simple: when working with one camera type LUTs promise fast results, and there is a lot of small business around LUTs where people offer their "My LUT package will make you a Netflix producer within seconds" to download. Often, the disappointment is huge when people realize that the just downloaded LUT package makes their own footage look very different from the advertisement trailers. Do I condemn or hate LUTs? Not at all! I have built my own very impressive LUTs with a genious SW called 3D LUT Creator to grade high resolution stills withstunning results. And some of these LUTs I use for film grading in videos, too. But, this is just to give footage a final look at the very end. BTW: what I saw about DR V17 so far looks to me as if BlackMagic has collaborated strongly with 3D LUT Creator makers or acquired the company. Thanks for sharing your great knowledge and experience with us!

Can you not adjust contrast to taste? Doing contrast manually is generally much more difficult and will not allow you to take advantage of color management, meaning you would manually have to change out put of contrast for different outputs instead of just changing to output gamma. You can just change the color space to rec709 using the color space transform ofx, but you can't do that using ACES. In any case the answer is yes but I strongly recommend adjusting contrast instead of doing it from scratch.

@@TonyDae you can just put the v-gamut primaries and V-log transfer "input color space" (right click on the file, not timeline) if you have Color managed YRGB space in project settings.

@@lolerie I'm aware of that.

LUTs are similar but not the same. Transform LUTs like these will clip information over certain values and only provide a transform into a singular gamma/color space. You will also have to be sure the tags are correct for the video to be read correctly by an encoder and decoder. Color Space transforms are mathematical and can be altered to output different color space/gamma at any time. If you grade using color space transforms or color management (ACES or Resolve Color Management) you can change the output color space and gamma at anytime to anything you want, including outputting for HDR10 deliverables, without needing a matching LUT. LUTs do not allow this unless you have a set of matching LUTs specifically designed with the proper output settings.

@@TonyDae Thanks Tony, that was very insightful. Do you have any opinion on what Picture Profile would work best in an indoor, controlled lighting environment that focuses on talking head shots or interviews? I have an 8-bit Sony A6600. I've gone through countless weeks of trying to compare footages of the two, but haven't gotten anywhere. I've also then tried to record some footages myself and compare, but there's so many variables involved (i.e. color grading variations, etc) that if I wanted to compare which produced better colors on skin tones for example, it proved to be too challenging. I've been looking at *Cine2*, as well as *HLG/HL3* (only avoiding SLOG with the belief that 8-bit cameras don't handle it well and the risk of banding is greater) - is there one that would be better for me to work with and/or what are the types of factors that would go into this decision of choosing between one or the other? I have plans to apply some creative LUTs on them as well, is Cine2 or HLG/HLG3 more suited to this regard? I have read some things by Alistair Chapman on HLG on xdcam-user, which he advises to not use HLG for any colour grading purposes as there's inherent problems in doing so - but I feel this might not be the case as there's a range of users that can work with HLG well. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts and suggestions please Tony!

@@itsdannyftw Send me an email, its in the ABOUT section of my channel.

@@TonyDae Thanks Tony - just sent one across! 🙌

Check the input color space on your clips and make sure it is set correctly. Sometimes it will default to rec709 input with certain codecs that don't communicate automatically with resolve in RCM.

But is what he said the right setting for the project?

@@TonyDaeI also struggle with this and there's conflicting information everywhere. I understand the color transform node settings but what should the color management settings be, and what should the clip input be set to?

@@fredriksvard2603 color management in should be vlog. Clips, if not transformed correctly due to meta data not being read, should be set to color space vlog in. Email me if you're still having trouble or join the discord.

Gh5 vlog should be the same but I think it's vlogL which may need some adjustments in the pipeline, I'd have to check. HLG is likely rec2020 (I read possibly rec2100?) since it is for HDR but I do not get much HLG. I would need some footage to test. CineD should be rec709, try rec709/rec709 to arri logC/arri wide gamut then add the arri lut on the end of the pipe. I used to do that trick to get a better highlight roll off.

@@TonyDae mate thanks so much for the reply. I will try those settings out. I don’t shoot/edit for HDR either but sometimes I find the HLG profile is a little cleaner than Vlogl depending on the scene I’m shooting

I1 have both gh5 and s5, they have quite different 'v-log', especially when we do the color transaction in Resolve.

Had a feeling vlogL might be different. Do you know the proper input color space for vlogL? Sometimes it can be hard to find information on this. Have you tried rec2020 or another common color space? Also, if color is getting over saturated, try using the gamut compression option. If that doesn't help, try transforming to an intermediate like Arri logC/arri wide gamut and adjust saturation/contrast before the CST or LUT at the end of the pipe. VlogL probably isn't fully recording all of vgamut but the primaries should be close if not the same.

@@TonyDae Thanks Tony. Actually I really get tired of v-logL, its gamma clips all the highlight above 75% I think. I don't know what gamut it chooses either 😓

You can use any you have mentioned for display referred. I used rec709 likely at the time just to put it in scene to demonstrate what a rec709 recording out of camera would give. You're using luts, so clearly you wouldn't have had the issue I demonstrate that others are struggling with.

Color managed works regardless. If you are using color management, change the output to the proper color space, likely Rec2100 with proper gamma, and make sure you are using an HDR monitor.

Maybe you can use resolve and generate your own luts?

@@TonyDae so it’ll cost me $300 to fix Panasonic color? Lol! Seriously, I’ve been meaning to try it, but I’ve been putting it off because of the relearning process.

Have you tried the free version?

@@TonyDae I haven’t, does it still allow for the color space transform tool?

I believe it does but I don't remember. Download it and take a look! If the node isn't available I'm sure color management is unlocked.

If it cannot properly transform the color space then yes. I don't use fcp.

I don't use final cut pro and they do not have color space transforms in the program to my knowledge. What you can do though is generate a LUT from Resolve and throw that into Final Cut. It won't be as good as real color management options but its something.

@@TonyDae ok thanks

You could try using resolve to transform the vgamut color space to a usable color space in fcp.

@@TonyDae dude! What would be the best workflow? Edit everything to a final edit in fcp and then send the log footage onto resolve? What would be the quality needed to export in fcp to keep the integrity into resolve?

It depends on the kind of budget you have. certain workflows work better for long pipelines, other for short.

@@TonyDae I did some testing with older video I found showing to use mlut to convert vlog into a rec709 space. It has 4 different vlog profiles. In my basic testing I noticed that obviously DR was the most accurate and best looking. Mlut with built in profiles was 2nd. Then I tried a conversion lut gamut io and finally grading it myself. In conclusion, DR is the best and mlut was in 2nd place when it came to reds being red and colors looking accurate. So for bigger projects I’ll use DR to convert and on everything else mlut will work fine.

@@TonyDae thanks again for making this video! It opened my eyes to what I was noticing but had no idea how to go about fixing it from the start! Thanks 🙏🏻

I have text in the video that tells you why I didn't use a lut. Even manufacturer luts are subjective, not mathematical.

If you are exposed correctly, white balanced properly, and you transform to rec709, yes your colors will look fine. Many people struggling with vlog are trying to manually correct vgamut/vlog to rec709 instead of allowing a CST to do that automatically. LUTs are problematic in many ways because they are generated with specific white balance and other parameters, and a CST is a mathematical transform.

@@TonyDae Perfect. So after we do this, where is the best place to start in order to make a Look? Should we start with curves, the dials, what?

@@joshdiditt I would say do all corrections first then do your contrast or lighting adjustments, then whatever look you are after. Corrections are more than half the job and everything else is playing or copying someone else's look. There are many ways to do the same thing in Resolve so experiment and find what makes the best outcomes for you.

I didn't shoot the footage.

Interesting... color management is the most basic part of color correction for log. Strange it wasn't included.

@@TonyDae thankfully you had me covered (though does take away from having an all in once course)

This particular video is not about how to expose VLOG, but if it is like any other log, ETTR works well as long as you aren't clipping highlights that you don't want to clip and skin tones aren't breaking as a result. Generally speaking, I tend to get the best results with either raw or log on any camera by over exposing middle gray by about 1 stop and pulling down a stop in post production. This will result in cleaner shadows but risks clipping highlights. If skin tones are around middle gray, over exposing by a stop should work out ok. But if over exposing by a stop or 2 is resulting in the skin tones going too high in the log curve, usually you are going to get poorer skin tones as a result because less color information will be going into those skin tone values. At any rate, the best way to know the flexibility of a file and how to expose for best results is to do your own tests.

Become a patron and I can make one for you.

@@TonyDae How do you go about using VlogL vs Vlog? Can you make a lut for both options? Gh5s shoots in VlogL

They are the same color space.

There's nothing really wrong with slog, slog2, or slog3. They require similar treatment like vlog not knowing this is why many people who don't know how to correct color properly complained about Sony color until sgamut3.cine. large gamut color spaces that are dissimilar to rec709 need a proper transform before being graded regardless of the brand. And if it's done right, most log results in similar output color. Arri Wide gamut gets a good reputation for the same reason sgamut3.cine does... They are designed with primaries closer to rec709 than most wide gamut color spaces. These work fine with basic adjustments and some in the community, often inexperienced with color correction, expect this with all log.

You can use Davinci Resolve to create a transform LUT like this and then import that to Premiere.