Camera log from your own LUT

Log footage looks flat until it’s converted. When Camera Log has no built-in curve for your footage, such as ARRI LogC or RED Log3G10, a .cube LUT, a file that maps one set of colours to another, can do the conversion instead. You pick the LUT once, and every clip of that file comes out as normal-looking video.

Where: Media tab ▸ Camera Log ▸ Log ▸ Use LUT…Media tab ▸ Camera Log ▸ Log ▸ LUT: name
Agent tools: import_mediaset_media_colorremove_media

Use LUT…

Open the Media tab and click the video file in the list.
In the Camera Log section, choose Use LUT… from the Log popup.
Pick the .cube file. The panel asks you to “Choose a .cube LUT that converts this file’s log footage to Rec. 709.”

The LUT joins the project’s media list and becomes this file’s conversion, all as one undo step called Camera Log. The line under the popup and the section’s header then read LUT: name.

Frame Job takes the LUT’s output as Rec. 709, so use a LUT made for that job. Like every Camera Log setting, it belongs to the file: every clip of the file follows it, reversed clips included, and it’s applied before the chroma key and every grade.

A file takes a curve or a LUT, not both, so choosing one replaces the other. A PQ file keeps its peak override.

If the file you pick is already in the Media list, Frame Job uses that entry and doesn’t add a second one.

The LUT has to be a 3D .cube of size 2 to 65 with the default 0 to 1 domain, and no larger than 32 MiB. Anything else shows an error naming the file and what’s wrong with it, and nothing changes. For example: ““Film.cube” is not a LUT Frame Job reads: line 2: LUT_3D_SIZE 200 is outside 2–65.” .cube LUTs has the format in full.

A LUT already in the project

Every .cube LUT in the project is listed in the Log popup as LUT: name, between the built-in curves and Use LUT…. The name is the file’s name without .cube.

To use the same LUT on another file, click that file in the list and choose its row. One LUT can convert any number of files.

The popup and the Look section read the same media list. A LUT you imported as a look is offered here, and a LUT you added with Use LUT… appears in the Look section’s Imported group.

To take a LUT off one file, choose None or a curve in the Log popup. The LUT stays in the Media list.

A LUT in use

A LUT that is some file’s Camera Log counts as used, even when no clip has it as a look. Unused only hides it from the Media list, and Remove asks before it takes the LUT away.

Remove the LUT

Right-click the LUT’s row on the Media tab and choose Remove. The alert says what depends on it, for example:

“It is the Camera Log of 2 files, which lose it.”
“It is the look of 1 clip, which keeps its place and loses the look. …and the Camera Log of 2 files, which lose it.”

The button names what it clears: Remove and Clear Camera Log, or Remove and Clear Looks and Camera Log when clips have the LUT as a look too. It removes the LUT as one undo step, Remove Media. Those files go back to no conversion, so they show the log picture as recorded. Clips that had it as a look stay where they are and lose the look. A PQ file keeps its peak. Cancel changes nothing.

The .cube file on your disk is never touched. See Remove media.

Camera Log and looks

Camera Log is applied before any look, so a look works on the picture the conversion made.

If a clip’s look is a .cube LUT and its file has a Camera Log, the Look section warns: “This clip’s file is converted by Camera Log; a camera LUT here converts it twice.”

It’s only a warning, and Frame Job changes nothing, because a creative LUT on top of a conversion is fine. If the look really is a camera LUT, keep it in one place: either in the Log popup or as the clip’s look, not both.

The eight built-in looks never show this warning.

Good to know

In an HDR (HLG) project, a LUT’s output is treated as SDR and lifted to reference white, so the file gains no HDR highlights. A built-in curve does become real HDR there.
If the LUT can’t be found or drawn, the footage shows unconverted, as flat log, until you relink the LUT. A LUT relinks like any other file in the Media list.
Relinking the video file keeps its Camera Log.
Camera Log is for video files. With an audio file, an image or a LUT selected, the popup is disabled and the line reads “Select a video in the list”.
View ▸ Show Ungraded turns looks and grades off and leaves the conversion on, because the conversion is how the file is read.

With an agent

An agent takes two steps where a person takes one: import_media brings the .cube into the project, then set_media_color names it as the file’s conversion, with color set to {lut: <media id>}. The call can’t set a curve and a LUT together.

remove_media won’t take a LUT that’s in use unless the call passes with_clips: true, which clears the conversions and looks that name it. See Tools: media.