You seem to misunderstand the role of LUTs in color grading. LUTs (Look-Up Tables — a simple multi-dimensional array data structure) describe how one color is transformed into another, and they are used for efficient color transformations. In Resolve, the tools you described help build a LUT in memory, which is then applied to each pixel in each frame, often using SIMD instructions for efficiency. This avoids the need to procedurally apply each setting to each pixel individually, which is way slow.

Drawing windows, mattes, tracking, and other masking tools determine where and how the LUT is applied within the rendering pipeline.

> Source? That's a very gross oversimplification of what a color session is like. LUTs don't do tracking. LUTs don't do keys. LUTs don't do mattes.

I work in AAA games and have written code for tonemapping and color grading. We often use a gbuffer (graphics buffer that could be seen as a 2D screen-shaped image that is never shown) to mask different objects in the scene and apply different LUTs accordingly. So, it is not only LUTs that are applied in a similar screen-space way, but also masking is similar.

> There's so much more going into color grading than "apply LUT here". Just look at the control surfaces for Resolve and the number of knobs/buttons/rollers. Would something that just applied LUTs need all of that?

On a low level, it essentially is about applying LUTs. How you create these LUTs and how you mask their application are crucial aspects of the process. But ultimately, a LUT is applied to pixels. You are talking about the artistry techniques involved in making a LUT and masking where it is applied, which is not debated.

LUTs are not just files you can import and export to grade the whole image or frame. They are a fundamental compact data structure that makes SIMD operations easy, which is why they are used in grading. If you set up a color grading pipeline with nodes in Resolve, it is very likely compiled into one or more LUTs, which are then applied to the frames.

My contention isn't how a LUT works in the background technically, but the fact that people consider applying a LUT all of what a colorist does. If you want to simplify it to that level, then it's really not even a conversation worth having as that's not the answer to the question.

> If you want to simplify it to that level, then it's really not even a conversation worth having

Hehe, you are not wrong.

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."

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.

This was a very interesting read, thank you.

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.

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.

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.

I know it's not just lookup tables. I'm waiting for you to talk about something other than that lol

I think the real reason why everyone including all of your cohorts behave like this is because when you press people they realize that they don't have a good way to explain it. It's a very fickle and varied thing per project and if you dig into any one example, it seems really silly and that brings out artists insecurities about how everything that they do is actually pretty silly. Whereas you know, say an experienced computer professional knows that everything is BS and they don't get so hung up on feeling called out by dumb things.

So yeah, I guess I'm used to the computer world where information sharing and how you share that information is so descriptive about where you're coming from. I guess I'm trying to figure out where you're coming from and it seems to be mostly that you have to deal with a bunch of idiots.

I do believe that there is a whole world of people out there that just think it's a lookup table. I'm sorry that that's all you deal with and that you can't explain it more than just to complain about those kind of people.

What more could you possibly need me to explain? I've provided much more detail than a lot of the YT tutorials of saying download my LUT. I've described recognizing that as the signal was pushed to the max the color changed from white to magenta and the actual cause coming from a bad sensor in a camera not delivering enough data in the green channel which required using the grading software to isolate and push the green channel harder so that it went back to the desired white. I've briefly talked about the basics of primary and secondary grading. I've talked about using the scopes to see how the adjustments you are making are actually affecting the signal. I have provided much detail on how a grading session is not just applying a LUT. I have never in a serious conversation said that's proprietary knowledge and you're not worthy. I have openly shared. You have not actually asked any direct question other that taking offense and my offense.

I really don't know how you think me and my cohorts are behaving. Is it that we (extrapolated from conversations I've heard) get offended because someone calls themself a colorist because they can apply a LUT? You think this is pompous that we do not agree that the ability to apply a LUT is the same thing as running a full color session? At this point, I'm really not sure what high horse you are on or that you think I am on.

I really reread this all earnestly, and I guess all I see is tactics and no strategy discussion. I understand that to ... Change the color of an image you have to adjust that color, or that if there is a cast or shadow of an unwanted color that ... One thing a video tool does is adjust color. But why or what next? Who knows. You gave it to a colorist. I've tried to repeatedly point out you keep shitting on LUTs as if that isn't what anyone can say as a secret word to bitch about to get into the secret pro chat room. I get it. But if you don't know of any theory materials or why any of this all is done then I don't know why you continue to comment. Photoshop is a very old tool, but I don't know why doing basic image adjustments should impress me, unless that's your point here, that it all might as well just be applying a simple curve and calling it day but you seem to also be upset with people that reduce the work to that so it is indeed very confusing. If you don't know how to teach a craft you claim to know then do you really know it?

I also thought grading was just LUTs. Does kino let you do all of the things you mentioned directly in the app?

Might I ask why this is all you thought a grading session involved? Clearly, this is a touchy subject for me as I spent a few years as an assistant to a very talented colorist. The plethora of YouTube videos saying color correct using my amazing LUTs available when you join my Patreon blah blah nonsense is really sad.

There are some truly amazing colorists, and then there are people that claim they are colorists when they just applied a LUT. I would be embarassed to call myself a colorist that way. With my experience, I still do not call myself a colorist. I also don't go around calling myself a DP because I own a camera and make pretty pictures, yet people go around with no real training calling themselves that because it's cool.

You are on a tech forum. People are going to talk about the technologies that make possible color grading.

Without LUTs, Look Up Tables, a computer would not be able to do color grading.