4 ms·

This is all I ever hear though. It isn't (just) LUTs, a bunch of posturing, and then "but it is magic that I can't share or you wouldn't understand."

by th0ma5 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago
Not understanding might not be far from the fact, but it is probably just posturing. I doubt most of the Tubers understand it themselves which is the real reason they can't share. They saw it on some other YT video, and then made it like it was their own idea. I've tried to explain how to use waveforms/vectorscopes and why they are important. Those things are rarely used any more, and people just don't realize how much more difficult they make it on themselves by not using them. Just because you can push that knob to an 11 doesn't mean you should. Pushing that knob while looking at the scopes will tell you when to stop. This was life or death when making content for broadcast. Also, I've seen all sorts of weird things that blindly applying a LUT wouldn't solve. There was a specific Red camera in town that had a very strange issue where the green color channel was not recording correctly. One shoot we had footage on was of an ice cream type place that had lots of whipped cream on the desserts. However, as you pushed the levels up, the green lagged behind so as the red and blue channels were maxing out the color on the screen went magenta. Applying a LUT would have looked terrible, but the colorist was able to go in to adjust the levels of the green channel separately so that the cream went back to white. It saved the shoot because a camera was not working properly. There's also interesting tricks to do like when shooting through windows of a high rise will give a green tint to things. So lowering just the green channel will bring things back which could be a specific LUT, but the thing with LUTs is they tend to get used for the wrong reasons. Shooting underwater without a filter can also be dialed back, but it's specific to camera/depth type of situations. Another common ask was to "open up the eyes". Well lit faces are notoriously hard as the sunken eye sockets just naturally shadow. So you add a window to the eyes and push the exposure up to achieve the effect that no LUT will ever achieve. If the camera moves for a tracking shot, the windows can track along with it. No LUT will ever accomplish that either. The eye is naturally attracted to the brightest area of the screen, so there's ways of grading something so that it suddenly receives some attention that a LUT would not get there, again using windows. Some of the internationalization of releases have small forensic tells in them to indicate which locale it might have been leaked from. One specific example was a stack of towels in the background of various colors. Through color correction, they changed the colors of the towels to be different for each region. So so so many things that well graded footage can have done to it that "you wouldn't understand" but would never come close to achieving with a LUT. Wouldn't understand is very harsh though, and is a total cop out from someone that sounds very pompous. I would say "wouldn't consider" as something that could be done let alone needed to be done.
- th0ma5 2y ago
  Tracking eyes and reducing shadows within a mask is ... Beyond what I would call grading. It all feels like some serious gatekeeping. Thanks for your reply heh but there sure is a lot of FUD out there in the mastering and grading world.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Beyond color grading? Gate keeping? (whatever in the world you mean by that). Might I ask how much experience you have with the world of professional color sessions? I have been in film/video post pretty much since graduating high school, so I have been a part of prepping content/materials for a color session for decades, but have also spent several years working at a post house that only did color correction. I'm guessing that it is you that has the incorrect understanding of what goes on in a color grading session. If you want to go around thinking that applying a LUT is all that happens in a grading session, then you might as well think that anyone that uses Wix or Squarespace is a web designer, or anyone that assembles Ikea furniture is a craftsman. Your definition would be very skewed.
    - th0ma5 2y ago
      Lol back to "it's not just luts lamer" heh ... In the computer world in my experience people who just like to say people are wrong never go anywhere, but it sure does feel a requirement of the entertainment industry. Just to be clear, I don't believe that it's just look up tables ... But I'm starting to believe that that's all you know to gripe about.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        Wow, that's just so far off basis, it's flabbergasting. I've gone into so much detail on what goes on during a color grading session, yet you keep coming back to "but it's all LUTs" in the end. You're totally ignoring all of the work and effort that went into generating those LUTS. You're coming across like you could just download a LUT called TheMatrix.lut and any footage it is applied to will look just like The Matrix. That's not going to happen. Somebody else came at me that they build AAA video games and that's their background with grading with LUTS. That's not even the same realm of grading camera originated footage. Being unable to recognize and admit that is just not worth arguing and that's where I left that one. Clearly, you are absolutely right in your mind and unwilling to acknowledge anything other than what you hold true.

This is all I ever hear though. It isn't (just) LUTs, a bunch of posturing, and then "but it is magic that I can't share or you wouldn't understand."

by th0ma5 2y ago

This is all I ever hear though. It isn't (just) LUTs, a bunch of posturing, and then "but it is magic that I can't share or you wouldn't understand."

dylan604 2y ago

Not understanding might not be far from the fact, but it is probably just posturing. I doubt most of the Tubers understand it themselves which is the real reason they can't share. They saw it on some other YT video, and then made it like it was their own idea. I've tried to explain how to use waveforms/vectorscopes and why they are important. Those things are rarely used any more, and people just don't realize how much more difficult they make it on themselves by not using them. Just because you can push that knob to an 11 doesn't mean you should. Pushing that knob while looking at the scopes will tell you when to stop. This was life or death when making content for broadcast. Also, I've seen all sorts of weird things that blindly applying a LUT wouldn't solve. There was a specific Red camera in town that had a very strange issue where the green color channel was not recording correctly. One shoot we had footage on was of an ice cream type place that had lots of whipped cream on the desserts. However, as you pushed the levels up, the green lagged behind so as the red and blue channels were maxing out the color on the screen went magenta. Applying a LUT would have looked terrible, but the colorist was able to go in to adjust the levels of the green channel separately so that the cream went back to white. It saved the shoot because a camera was not working properly. There's also interesting tricks to do like when shooting through windows of a high rise will give a green tint to things. So lowering just the green channel will bring things back which could be a specific LUT, but the thing with LUTs is they tend to get used for the wrong reasons. Shooting underwater without a filter can also be dialed back, but it's specific to camera/depth type of situations. Another common ask was to "open up the eyes". Well lit faces are notoriously hard as the sunken eye sockets just naturally shadow. So you add a window to the eyes and push the exposure up to achieve the effect that no LUT will ever achieve. If the camera moves for a tracking shot, the windows can track along with it. No LUT will ever accomplish that either. The eye is naturally attracted to the brightest area of the screen, so there's ways of grading something so that it suddenly receives some attention that a LUT would not get there, again using windows. Some of the internationalization of releases have small forensic tells in them to indicate which locale it might have been leaked from. One specific example was a stack of towels in the background of various colors. Through color correction, they changed the colors of the towels to be different for each region. So so so many things that well graded footage can have done to it that "you wouldn't understand" but would never come close to achieving with a LUT. Wouldn't understand is very harsh though, and is a total cop out from someone that sounds very pompous. I would say "wouldn't consider" as something that could be done let alone needed to be done.

th0ma5 2y ago
Tracking eyes and reducing shadows within a mask is ... Beyond what I would call grading. It all feels like some serious gatekeeping. Thanks for your reply heh but there sure is a lot of FUD out there in the mastering and grading world.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Beyond color grading? Gate keeping? (whatever in the world you mean by that). Might I ask how much experience you have with the world of professional color sessions? I have been in film/video post pretty much since graduating high school, so I have been a part of prepping content/materials for a color session for decades, but have also spent several years working at a post house that only did color correction. I'm guessing that it is you that has the incorrect understanding of what goes on in a color grading session. If you want to go around thinking that applying a LUT is all that happens in a grading session, then you might as well think that anyone that uses Wix or Squarespace is a web designer, or anyone that assembles Ikea furniture is a craftsman. Your definition would be very skewed.
  - th0ma5 2y ago
    Lol back to "it's not just luts lamer" heh ... In the computer world in my experience people who just like to say people are wrong never go anywhere, but it sure does feel a requirement of the entertainment industry. Just to be clear, I don't believe that it's just look up tables ... But I'm starting to believe that that's all you know to gripe about.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Wow, that's just so far off basis, it's flabbergasting. I've gone into so much detail on what goes on during a color grading session, yet you keep coming back to "but it's all LUTs" in the end. You're totally ignoring all of the work and effort that went into generating those LUTS. You're coming across like you could just download a LUT called TheMatrix.lut and any footage it is applied to will look just like The Matrix. That's not going to happen. Somebody else came at me that they build AAA video games and that's their background with grading with LUTS. That's not even the same realm of grading camera originated footage. Being unable to recognize and admit that is just not worth arguing and that's where I left that one. Clearly, you are absolutely right in your mind and unwilling to acknowledge anything other than what you hold true.