Film Stock LUTS

[Peter]

There's a lot of LUTS available, both free and paid. Many claim to be accurate but does anyone know which are the closest to emulating actual film stocks? Resolve has it's 'film look' LUTS for Kodak and Fuji. When shooting with film, there is both the camera negative stock itself and then print stock to consider. I'd love to hear any thoughts people have.

[Sam Gilling]

These are old Lustre DI LUTs that I've had some luck with in the past. 

[Anton Meleshkevich]

I think, free 2383 LUTs from light illusion and davinci resolve LUTs are more than enough for that purpose.
But Steve Shaw (from light illusion) says, Koji LUTs are may be most accurate print emulation LUTs on the market.

But you still may want to fix yellowish green color.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Anton Meleshkevich

[Peter]

Do the Koji LUTS work in Resolve? The website seems to only mention PPro, FCPX and AE. I've been using Impulz LUTS and find they do a reasonable job.

[Anton Meleshkevich]

Yes, they work

[John Parker]

also check out FilmConvert (www.filmconvert.com). You can get 10% off with promo code LOWEPOST too.

(disclaimer: I work for FilmConvert  but our film stock emulations are also really good)

[Peter]

Hi John, since you work for them, I would love to know how they're created. As in, do you physically have the film stocks there that, through some process, you're able to accurately reproduce the way they work or is it more a guess work to get them to have similar characteristics of the stock? Does that make sense or am I being confusing? :)

[John Parker]

Hi Peter. Yes, we have shot rolls of all of our film stocks in a controlled studio environment, so we have the print density emulations as our targets. We also profile each digital camera, down to the camera model and specific picture style, so we can create an accurate transform between the camera footage and the target film stock.

We have a free, fully functional trial version of the software available at www.filmconvert.com/download that you can try out - all the film stocks are enabled, and the camera profile packs are free to download as well.

[Peter]

Thanks for the info. I'll check them out

[Anton Meleshkevich]

@John Parker do you plan to release a version without print film emulation or with ability to disable it?

Also do you still don't know, what exactly print film was used? Filmconvert support says me, they only know the lab name, but not the name of print film you have used.

Seems like it is definitely not 2383. However blue color doesn't look like on 2383.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Anton Meleshkevich

[John Parker]

We have 19 different film stocks in the plugin, each one was profiled separately so they all have the individual characteristics of that film stock.

We're planning an update to the software in the near future that will enable the original Cineon log scans to be used, instead of the projected film simulation. This will keep the flavor of the film stock but give more power and flexibility in grading.

[Christian Bille]

On 10/9/2018 at 6:04 AM, John Parker said:

We're planning an update to the software in the near future that will enable the original Cineon log scans to be used, instead of the projected film simulation. This will keep the flavor of the film stock but give more power and flexibility in grading.

Sounds great, thank you for listening

[Maria Karanam]

@John Parker How does filmconvert compare to other emulation plugins like colourlab in your opinion? Or is it just matter of more options and choice but not the output for given same parameters?

[John Parker]

On 11/2/2018 at 11:33 AM, Maria Karanam said:

@John Parker How does filmconvert compare to other emulation plugins like colourlab in your opinion? Or is it just matter of more options and choice but not the output for given same parameters?

We don't know much about how Colourlab develop their film emulation, but FilmConvert is available to the public, whereas they have a members-only policy

FilmConvert's emphasis is on getting fast, usable results straight out-of-the-box with our camera profiles, so it's a good choice for jobs which require a quick turnaround, look visualization or on-set LUTs. The camera profile -> film stock matching also means FilmConvert can be used as a good camera matching tool for projects with footage from multiple camera sources, but we're also working on a new tool called CineMatch (www.cinematch.com) which is going to improve camera-matching accuracy too.

[Jeremy Dulac]

@John Parker Any update on when the cineon scans will be available? Excited about this one..

[Marc Wielage]

You can also see Juan Melara's tutorial on how to duplicate certain film-based LUTs as Resolve PowerGrades here:

http://juanmelara.com.au/blog/rebuilding-the-600-dollar-linny-lut-for-the-alexa-plus-free-download 

 

Edited December 8, 2018 by Marc Wielage

[Scott Stacy]

Here is a Powergrade I created that emulates 2383 that you can play with: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wda8sf4xdg3mpwz/AABKKXxahWBMFoIv7X0zQ4_Ca?dl=0

You might find this interesting: https://mixinglight.com/color-tutorial/creating-western-color-grade-look/

Here is a link to Juan Melara's 2383 video.  Scroll down for a link to the Powergrade download.

 

Here is a link to the Powergrade: http://juanmelara.com.au/store/kodak-2383-powergrade

 

[John Parker]

On 12/6/2018 at 3:10 AM, Jeremy Dulac said:

@John Parker Any update on when the cineon scans will be available? Excited about this one..

We'll hopefully have a beta of the Premiere Pro plugin available early in the New Year. Aiming for retail version availability in April 2019.

If you haven't already seen it, check out Juan Melara's video on the "hidden film mode inside FilmConvert" 

 

[Jeremy Dulac]

@John Parker Thanks, John! Yeah I have tried Juan's tutorial which has worked decently well for me. Can't wait to have correct camera profiling to bring out a more accurate film match!

[Nico Wieseneder]

On 10/9/2018 at 6:04 AM, John Parker said:

We have 19 different film stocks in the plugin, each one was profiled separately so they all have the individual characteristics of that film stock.

We're planning an update to the software in the near future that will enable the original Cineon log scans to be used, instead of the projected film simulation. This will keep the flavor of the film stock but give more power and flexibility in grading.

Hey @John Parker, I just bought Filmconvert few days ago because I'm very interested in testing and working with the Cineon log scans and Juans tutorial. Would love to see an update with more/all Cineon log scans!

[Peter]

I finally got around to trying out FilmConvert. It seems to work well. My question is, because it works as an OFX plugin, I would think that using it over an entire film could slow things down. My thought would be to create a 3D LUT from FC and work with that. 

Anyone had any experience with this?

[Scott Stacy]

It's not as power hungry as some OFX, but it will tax your system depending on your system.  I would be more inclined to use PixelTools https://pixeltoolspost.com/ for a filmic look and then put the FC grain on the timeline.  PixelTools uses powergrades and is, therefore, less taxing.

 

[John Parker]

Update for those going to NAB in a couple of weeks - FilmConvert will be doing private demos of the new print density film emulations in FilmConvert. Contact john@filmconvert.com to arrange a demo time. We'll be at C3359MR in the Central Hall.

[Nico Wieseneder]

6 hours ago, John Parker said:

Update for those going to NAB in a couple of weeks - FilmConvert will be doing private demos of the new print density film emulations in FilmConvert. Contact john@filmconvert.com to arrange a demo time. We'll be at C3359MR in the Central Hall.

That's really great news, @John Parker! Can't wait to test them. Unfortunately I'm not attending NAB but I hope you'll release them soon afterwards, so we "not NAB people" can get our hands on them too. Really excited. 

[Nico Wieseneder]

On 3/20/2019 at 5:16 PM, Peter said:

I finally got around to trying out FilmConvert. It seems to work well. My question is, because it works as an OFX plugin, I would think that using it over an entire film could slow things down. My thought would be to create a 3D LUT from FC and work with that. 

Anyone had any experience with this?

Just do some tests. You'll learn best with trial and error (if you're not an assistant of a Senior Colorist, or similar) even if it's a real pain sometimes. Experienced the same thing on my own. But generally speaking I think you can say that 3D Luts are less hardware hungry than OFX plugins. So you're on the right path already. And you'll even notice a difference between different OFX plugins depending on your hardware and if they support GPU acceleration or only CPU.