3-D Look-Up Tables (LUTs)

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‌3-D Look-Up Tables (LUTs)

If you have them available, SynthEyes can read .3dl, .csp, .cube, .1dlut, .ilut, and

.olut color lookup tables and use them to process your images. These allow rather complex color manipulations to be performed, as well as potentially allowing you to match your color monitor exactly. The .csp format is the most powerful and flexible.

LUTs can be placed within one of the "script" folders so they are available for easy access as presets, in either the user or system folder locations. You can open up a window to those folder from inside SynthEyes by using the "Script/User script folder" or "Script/System script folder" menu items. If you add new profiles while SynthEyes is running, click the "File/Find new scripts" menu item.

Color profiles are visible in the Image Preprocessor on the Color tab --- there is a dropdown labeled 3-D Color Map; you can select the desired profile there. If you change a profile after SynthEyes has read it, click the Reload button under the dropdown to force the map to be re-read.

You can also open color profile files anywhere in the file system by clicking the "Open" button on the Color tab.

Note : Having a large number of color map presets will increase SynthEyes's startup time. One-time-use color maps should be stored with the source imagery.

SynthEyes can save the current Level Adjustment, Hue, Saturation, and Exposure settings in the form of a 1D or 3D color map (as needed). This allows you to create color-only presets independent of a particular shot. The LUT resolution is set by a preference in the FILE EXPORT section (1D LUTs are 8x the setting, which is for 3D LUTs).

With a few exceptions, SynthEyes will not build LUT tables for you. (In fact, in theory it should work identically for all possible color modifications, since the camera position has not changed.) You will need to obtain the tables from other sources such as the camera manufacturer or film scanning house.

You can have SynthEyes output the current color adjustment settings, including level adjustments, hue/saturation/expose, and Kurves, as a 3-D LUT using the Save button on the Color panel.

Note: the Save button’s LUT reflects all the settings, including the Level adjustments, Hue, Saturation, and Exposure, as well as Kurves, all rolled together. If you use only Kurves, use the Write Kurves cubemap menu item on Kurves’ right-click menu. It can produce more accurate maps that better capture what’s being done in Kurves.

There are some tool scripts for generating or manipulating color maps in the Script/Lens menu item. There is a script for combining LUTs, for example if you have a film LUT and a LUT for your own monitor, you can combine them using the script, since you can only apply one at a time in SynthEyes. There is also a tool for creating color maps for Cineon files from the white- and black-point values.

You can find additional tools for manipulating and converting LUTs online, such as https://cameramanben.github.io/LUTCalc/LUTCalc/index.html There used to be a tool at Digital Praxis for ‘ripping’ LUTs from before and desired-after images; its current status is unknown.

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