Why We Love LUTs - Replace Your LUT Addiction

Why We Love LUTs and How To Replace Your LUT Addiction

January 10, 2017

Most of us love to use LUTs behind closed doors. Dan shares his thoughts on why and how to break out of needing LUTs


Day 10: 25 Insights in 25 Days New Year Marathon

Our Love Of LUTs

In this insight, I take a look at why people including myself love LUTs.

Sure we might not use them on a day to day basis but there is something satisfying about loading different LUTs.

A little excitement to see what kind of random result will pop out.

I feel like the reason we love them so much is they do multiple things at once.

Things like contrast curves, adding separation with excellent primary grades and some secondary corrections.

The downside is all of this is baked in and you have no control over it.

Another reason I quite like them for inspiration is its not a grade I did myself.

For some reason, other people’s looks always look better than my own.

For example, look at someone else’s showreel and I bet you feel like their work is better than yours even if it isn’t!

I think it’s human instinct or at least my instinct to always be hypercritical of my own grades and work.

How can I Inspire Myself?

My solution to inspiring myself without LUTs is in the video below.

It’s quite simple. I have built a giant gallery of all my grades.

The good, the bad and the ugly of my grades live in that library and at the start of the job I can quickly load it up and inspire myself.

What’s the point?

I still have all the node graphs saved also.

It means I don’t ever need to use LUTs to show my brain what a nice look on the shot would be.

The benefit of this is that as soon as I like something I can modify it or turn off elements of it.

I’d love to know what you guys think?

Am I too anti-LUT or is this a smarter option than wrestling with baked in grades via LUTs.

If you’ve got any questions, be sure to leave a comment!

-Dan

Member Content

Sorry... the rest of this content is for members only. You'll need to login or Join Now to continue (we hope you do!).

Need more information about our memberships? Click to learn more.

Membership options
Member Login

Are you using our app? For the best experience, please login using the app's launch screen


1,200+ Tutorials, Articles, and Webinars To Explore

Get 7-day access to our library of over 1,200+ tutorials - for $5!
Do you like what you see? Maintain access for less than $5 per month.


Start Your Test Drive!
Loading...