Free Ektar 100 LUT for Magic Lantern footage

[hyalinejim]

We all know that one of the advantages of shooting RAW is the scope it gives to achieve different looks. LUT solutions such as FilmConvert, Koji and Impulz attempt to emulate popular film stocks with more or less success for different cameras. Part of the problem of using these LUTs for Magic Lantern footage is that it's not always entirely clear how best to prepare the footage before the LUT.

A while back I became very interested in generating my own LUTs. It started with my efforts to match an XC10 to Magic Lantern tonality and colour. I used a ColorChecker and Resolve to get a pretty close match between the two. More recently I've begun searching online for photos of ColorCheckers taken on photographic film. I wanted to share a LUT I made to emulate a particular (scanned) shot taken on Ektar 100 that I found at http://lifeindigitalfilm.blogspot.ie/2009/07/film-review-kodak-ektar-100-135-format.html

This has a nice gentle curve and pastel colours - good for blues and pinks. If you can tweak your white balance at the perfect point on the blue-orange and green-magenta axes, the results can be really nice for skin tones. Here's the LUT:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFZ2drM1JWYmdSY28

This is optimised for my workflow, which means Cinelog-C for Adobe Camera Raw. But if you don't have Cinelog for ACR or Resolve you can still use the LUT if you can get your footage into a log gamma. In Resolve color management settings, choose Arri Log C Timeline Colorspace for results very close to Cinelog.

The LUT is very friendly towards footage prepared in this way. There should be no clipping of the highs or lows. All you need to do is set the black point and white point, fine tune white balance and tint and you're good to go. I find that this order works best:

Curves
White balance
LUT

Magic Lantern has given me a lot over the years. This is one small way in which I can give back to the community.

[squig]

Thx mate.

[BBA]

Thanks !
So beautiful !

[Lars Steenhoff]

Thanks!

If you make any more I will look forward to them

[hjfilmspeed]

This looks incredible. I can't wait to try!

[Tom_LS]

Thanks

[hyalinejim]

Glad people are enjoying the lut! I had some time this evening to do more tinkering. There are a number of good shots of Colorcheckers using various stocks at this link:

http://125px.com/articles/photography/film/kodak-film-comp/

With one of these shots I've created a slightly different version of the Ektar 100 lut, giving a different colour response. I kept the gamma the same as the first one, as I think it works really well, and the white balance is matched between them.

Here's the download:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1exEpCRAfgFUTZVTHpKR0FScUE

I'm calling this LANDSCAPE simply because the greens are far more accurate and life-like in this version, while maintaining the rosy pastel hues. That doesn't mean the first lut is obsolete - it's just different. It also doesn't mean that this second lut is only good for landscapes - skin looks great too - I'm just calling it that because greens are actually really muddy brown in the first lut. Also this one is more saturated.

Here are samples of the new ML Cinelog-C to Ektar 100 LANDSCAPE lut:















Have a play with the lut and let me know what you think! There are other film stocks that could be emulated on that page above. I'm off on my hols for two weeks, though. I'll do a few more when I get back.

[bpv5P]

So, I've tested it and that's good. I think it's too contrasted and too saturated, but that's probably just a personal opinion.
I also compared it against other luts that emulate Ektar:

[hyalinejim]

Yes, the reds are definitely very hot in my landscape lut, and if there is a lot of shadow noise (like you get from Resolve's debayering) the lut will accentuate that unless you desaturate the shadows after the lut. However, it shouldn't be giving you results that are too contrasty. Are you sure that the input is Cinelog-C or something similar?

Here's a high contrast scene with highlight clipping, Cinelog-C ACR profile in a Rec709 After Effects project:



Here it is with Ektar 100 Landscape. Highlights are now just under 100 IRE and shadows are sitting at 0 but not clipped too much.



So it's quite a mild contrast boost. Thanks for the comparison to other Ektar luts - that's really interesting! Of course each emulation depends on the condition of the film, the processing and the scanning, as well as the emulation technique. I've found another interesting looking Ektar 100 colour chart, this time with very purply blues. I'll give this a go when I get back from hols.

https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/ektar-100-vs-ektar-25-grain.348393/

In the meantime, here are some more examples, mainly in mixed lighting (output from Resolve, so shadows might be a bit noisy)

[GutterPump]

Very nice work @hyalinejim.

Im a big user of Koji Color LUTS, but now i think to use your. More easy to grade with it, more neutral. The shadows are less crushed too.

[bpv5P]

Are you sure that the input is Cinelog-C or something similar?

I'm sure. In my test I gave rawtherapee the input, the loaded the DCP, fixed WB and exposure, and exported in TIF 16bit. Then imported on photoshop and gave it the lut.
Maybe if you decrease the cyan/blue light value by 40% it would be nice. Also, maybe decrease neutral saturation by -30%, and decrease overall saturation by 15%. Also less crushed shadows, upping the zone 3 by ~20%.

What is the software you're using to do it?


@GutterPump

Im a big user of Koji Color LUTS

I have tested Koji too, too contrasted, not a big deal (personal opinion).

[hyalinejim]

rawtherapee.....photoshop

What is the software you're using to do it?

Adobe Camera Raw to After Effects, and this is what the lut is optimised for. Maybe that's why it's too contrasty on your end. If you have Cinelog-C and After Effects you can try this (from the Cinelog-C 2017 user guide):

Open After Effects and create a new composition

Open the Project Settings panel and set Depth to 32 bits per channel (float). Working Space should be set to HDTV (Rec.709). Compensate for Scene-referred profiles should be ticked. Linearize Workspace, Blend colors using 1.0 gamma and Match legacy After Effects QuickTime Gamma Adjustment should be unticked (no tick). Other settings should remain at their defaults.

Click on OK.

Important: The Cinelog Digital Camera Profiles and OpenColorIO configuration are mathematical and calculations are based strictly on a defined standard. The Working Space ICC profile should always be set to HDTV (Rec.709) when using Cinelog for accuracy.

In Adobe Camera Raw:

Select the Camera Calibration tab (camera icon) and choose the Cinelog-C camera profile for your camera.

If you don't have Cinelog or After Effects, DNGs debayered into an Alexa Log C timeline in Resolve should be more or less similar.

You can see from my earlier before and after shots of the backlit mountain that shadows shouldn't be crushed too much by the lut. So there must be something about the Raw Therapee to PS workflow that gives different input levels than what the lut is expecting. If so, it's easy to raise and lower black points before the lut.

Out of curiousity, why are you using Raw Therapee with Photoshop, when Adobe Camera Raw comes bundled with Photoshop?

[bpv5P]

Out of curiousity, why are you using Raw Therapee with Photoshop, when Adobe Camera Raw comes bundled with Photoshop?

I'm just using PS to apply the lut, I don't really use PS at all (unless I need to manipulate an image in a physical way, like remove some object). I use rawtherapee because it's the most advanced raw processor I know, and I've tried many.
Rawtherapee has the support to apply lut, but just Hald CLUT, not 3dLut. I need yet to convert the luts I use to Hald CLUT to use it directly without photoshop.
I'm actually planning to do all the work with rawtherapee on a MLV project I have, and then just glue everything with kdenlive, so I can keep it all open source...

[hyalinejim]

Thanks for the DNG via PM! Here's what your DNG looks like in a Rec 709 After Effects project, using Cinelog-C profile via ACR:



And this is with the landscape lut applied:



Now, it's a high dynamic range scene and you've protected the highlights. So I simply added a curve before the lut and lifted the middle quite a bit, and lowered the black point slightly to compensate:



Highlights are preserved, the texture of the tablecloth is preserved in the shadow areas (if you zoom in on a calibrated monitor). The colours are not too saturated, and the red of the anamorphic clamp looks a lot more natural than in the gif you posted above.

Maybe the Cinelog DCP doesn't behave the same in Raw Therapee as it does in ACR?

[DeafEyeJedi]

Hey I honestly am digging this Ektar 100 LUT in conjuction with Cinelog DCP which mates really well together and thanks for sticking with the ACR route within AE. Love how the shadows are coming out from this combo. Feels very authentic and yet not too filmic! Nice job on nailing down the gamma!

Adobe Standard via ACR:


Cinelog DCP 2017 via ACR:


Ektar 100 LUT on top of Cinelog within AE:


Same as above plus added a Curve in between:


A bunch of rough cuts w the combo from above:
https://vimeo.com/212361104

Can't ask for a better workflow (quality wise) despite the longer rendering times. Thanks for bringing sexy back @hyalinejim! 

[bpv5P]

Maybe the Cinelog DCP doesn't behave the same in Raw Therapee as it does in ACR?

May be... still, in your editing I still see crushed shadows. I should not occur since it's an HDR image. But, the image I've sent you is crap, I'll do some landscape next week to test it properly.

Hey @DeafEyeJedi , dual_iso and a polarizer would help in this kind of scenes
But it still quite good. Good job!

[DeafEyeJedi]

That's true @bpv5P! Actually did use a Profiler Circular on the 16-35II all day during that shoot but sure these were just b-rolls from a paid gig that I did so yeah Dual-ISO came across my mind but meh.

[squig]

In case anybody didn't already know, multiprocessing was disabled in AE CC 2015. Render times are way faster in CC 2014 and CS6. CS6 is a bit faster than CC 2014 on my 6 core Mac Pro. Installers are still available through creative cloud.

[hyalinejim]

Never knew that, squig. How much faster?

@DeafEyeJedi great to see the lut being put to good use! The difference with ACR defaults is striking. Might use this for photos as well.

ACR definitely has best debayering but if I'm in a rush I use Cinelog for Resolve.

[squig]

Never knew that, squig. How much faster?

Way faster, depends how many cores you have. Rendering is CPU based in AE. CS6 and CC 2014 make use of virtual cores, so on my mac I allocate 10 cores to rendering. I've allocated 2Gb of ram per core but it doesn't need that much to run at optimum speed. Edit>Purge>All memory and [caps lock] to disable screen refresh speeds up rendering too.

[hyalinejim]

Great info, thanks!

[DeafEyeJedi]

Thought about starting a new thread out of respect to @hyalinejim but since he is just as interested as much as I am and felt it was worth sharing. Not sure if any of you are experiencing this as well?



Any clue how to run AE CS6 on the latest OS X 10.12.3?

[squig]

Any clue how to run AE CS6 on the latest OS X 10.12.3?

Run the 11.0.4.2 update for AE CS6.

[DeafEyeJedi]

Run the 11.0.4.2 update for AE CS6.

That did the trick. Thanks @squig!

Got bored. Some skin tones comparisons with a 3008x1320 DNG sample from 5D3 (WB @ 5350k) + Nikon 55mm Micro-NIKKOR Nippon Kogaku glass.

Cinelog-DCP:


Cinelog + Ektar 100:

[bpv5P]

@DeafEyeJedi I think it should have more ~0.7 f-stop on your scene, it seems a but underexposed... maybe the highlights will be overexposed after the 0.7 increase, so perhaps compress the highlight. Does it still generate flickering on ACR? You see, Rawtherapee has no problem with that