Film Emulation and LUTs

A film profile sets the picture’s look. The Film Emulation tab adds halation, softness, diffusion and grain. These choices are independent: use a stock without grain, grain with the house render, or both.

This chapter covers the film profile list, the Film Emulation tab, the Colour Space node, LUTs, and exporting a look as a LUT or a Verana profile. The Output tab, where the profile is chosen for a deliverable, is covered in Chapter 24. The resources panel, where imported LUTs are listed, is covered in Chapter 17.

14.1 Where the Film Look Lives

Choose a film profile on the Output tab, the Node tab of a color space node or the Video Input tab.

Where to find it: the Output tab, the Tone mapping and Profile rows; the Node tab of a Colour Space node and the Video Input tab, the Tone Mapping and Profile rows.

The Output tab chooses the profile for a deliverable, and that is where most users set it (Chapter 24). A Colour Space node chooses it for the conversion that node performs (section 14.3). The Video Input tab chooses it for a clip whose camera output is set to a display space (Chapter 12). The row appears when tone mapping is Pearla and the selected output color space is SDR. HDR output uses the house render without a film profile. Camera log output has no look applied.

The list reads the same in every one of these places. Pearla Film Gamut comes first: the plain house render with no film stock. The stocks follow, in this order.

A new output and a new Colour Space node start with Pearla Fida. The three Solara profiles render black and white regardless of the color work upstream.

14.2 The Film Emulation Tab

Where to find it: the Film Emulation tab.

The tab is offered on the raw input node of a still, the video input node of a clip, and any adjustment node. It has four sections in a fixed order: HALATION, SOFTNESS, DIFFUSION, GRAIN. Each section is off until its amount slider leaves zero, and returns to off when the amount is dragged back to zero.

Halation. The glow that bright areas cast into their surroundings on film.

Threshold sets how bright an area must be before it contributes. Show Halation Only renders the halation alone, with the picture removed, so the spread can be judged on its own. It is a viewing aid, stored with the node like any other setting, so turn it off when you are done.

Softness. One slider, Amount, 0 to 1, off at zero. Softens edge definition across the picture.

Diffusion. Amount, 0 to 1, off at zero, and Highlight Bias, 0 to 1, default 0.60. Diffusion spreads the brightest tones more than the rest; the bias sets how strongly the highlights are favored.

Grain. Grain has two amounts and is on while either is above zero.

Neg Amount and Print Amount each add grain of a different character, and the two can be mixed. Format sets the size of the emulated frame, and with it how large the grain appears against the picture: the stills formats 35mm Full Frame, 645, 6x7 and 4x5, then a divider, then the motion formats Super 16, Super 35 and 65mm. A larger format gives finer grain at the same amounts. Stock sets how coarse the grain is: Vision3 50D, Vision3 250D or Vision3 500T, from finest to coarsest.

On a still, the grain pattern stays the same on every redraw and every export. On a clip the grain changes from frame to frame, as film grain does.

Note: Exported LUTs omit all four sections (section 14.5). Verana profiles include grain and halation settings, but omit softness and diffusion (section 14.6).

14.3 The Color Space Transform Node

A Colour Space node converts the picture from one declared color space to another at a chosen point in the graph, with optional tone mapping, gamut mapping and a film profile. Inserting a node is covered in Chapter 11. Selecting the card shows its settings on the Node tab.

Where to find it: the Node tab, shown beside Info when a Colour Space node is selected.

The tab’s rows, Input, Output, Tone Mapping and Profile under COLOR SPACE, and Method, Knee and Max under GAMUT MAPPING, are listed in section 11.14. This section covers what they do to the picture.

Input sets the input color space. Inherit uses the preceding node’s color space, shown by name in the row. Choose a space to override it; choose Inherit again to clear the override. The color space list, grouped by camera brand, is the one described in Chapter 12.

The Tone Mapping row appears only when the conversion goes from a scene-referred space (a camera log, or Pearla Wide Gamut) to an SDR display space. A new node starts with Pearla. None is a plain conversion with no tone mapping at all. Profile appears under Pearla only.

The GAMUT MAPPING section is always shown. Its Method row chooses how colors outside the output space are handled. Saturation Mapping reduces extreme saturation while leaving less saturated colors unchanged. Knee runs from 0.00 to 0.99, default 0.80; lower values affect less saturated colors too. Max runs from 0.50 to 1.10, default 1.00, and sets the strongest saturation. At 1.00, it reaches the output space’s limit. Clip limits colors to that space.

The card shows the input space over the output space, so the conversion can be read on the canvas without opening the tab. A disabled Colour Space node passes the picture through unchanged, and the color space flowing downstream is the one that arrived. Reset Node on the card returns the node to an inherited input, Pearla Wide Gamut out, Pearla tone mapping, no gamut mapping and Pearla Fida.

14.4 Importing and Applying LUTs

LUTs live in the catalog and are listed on the resources panel’s LUTs tab. The panel itself is covered in Chapter 17; this section covers getting a LUT in and putting it on a node.

Where to find it: the resources panel, LUTs tab, the Import LUT button.

Import LUT opens a panel titled Import LUTs. Dropping files onto the tab does the same; while the tab is empty it reads Drop .cube, .3dl, or .png files here. Three formats are accepted: .cube, .3dl, and a .png holding a Hald identity grid. Files of any other kind in a drop are skipped without a message. Each LUT takes its name from its file, and its row shows the format and the grid size, as CUBE · 33³.

Some LUTs need adjustment on import. The alert LUT imported with an adjustment (or LUTs imported with adjustments) names the affected files and describes the changes. These LUTs are imported and usable. A file that cannot be read at all is refused with '<file>' could not be imported (or N LUTs could not be imported) and The file may be corrupt or use an unsupported format. Right-click a row for Rename and Delete.

Where to find it: the Colour tab, the LUT section.

A LUT is applied on a node from the Colour tab: the LUT dropdown chooses it and Strength blends it in. Chapter 13 covers the two controls, and what happens when a chosen LUT is later deleted from the catalog. A grade pasted into a catalog that lacks its LUTs says so and skips them (Chapter 17).

14.5 Exporting the Look as a LUT

The color work of a graph’s look can be written out as a .cube file for use in another application.

Where to find it: File → Export LUT, or Export LUT on an output card’s menu.

The card’s menu item acts on that output. The File menu item acts on the output the Output tab is showing, or, when no output is inspected, the one the loupe is showing. A save panel opens with the file named <photo>_<output>.cube and an accessory row, LUT size:, offering 17, 33 or 65 points per axis; 33 is preselected. In the other application, apply the file where the picture is in Pearla Wide Gamut, and convert to the delivery space after it.

The LUT carries the adjustments of every enabled input and adjustment node on the path to that output: curves, the Colour tab’s color work, and any LUTs with their strengths. The LUT omits masks, crop and resize, text, healing, frequency separation, the Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks sliders (on the Curves tab and on the Develop and Video Input tabs), Midtone Detail, Clarity, Dehaze, grain, halation, softness, diffusion, the Colour Space nodes, tone mapping, the film profile and Punch. The LUT is the color work alone, not the delivered look.

The item is grayed when the path has nothing a LUT can carry. A path through a parallel or layer mixer is refused after the save panel with the sheet Can't export this LUT and This grade has a Parallel or Layer node; a LUT cannot carry it. The same sheet reports a grade whose LUTs can no longer be loaded, naming them, with the instruction to re-import them or remove them from the grade. A successful export shows Exported <file> with Show in Finder.

14.6 Exporting a Verana Profile

Export a Verana profile to use the graph’s display look as a custom camera profile in Verana. Unlike a LUT, it carries the Colour Space nodes, the tone mapping, the film profile and Punch. Verana handles HDR itself.

Where to find it: File → Export Verana Profile, or Export Verana Profile on an output card’s menu.

The command targets an output as Export LUT does. It opens the sheet Export as Verana Profile, which lists the included adjustments: curves, color, LUTs, color space transforms, tone mapping, film stock and punch. A Profile name field is filled with the photo’s file name without its extension (Untitled Look if there is no photo).

Below the name is the manifest. When all adjustments can be included, it reads Everything on this path travels. Otherwise it reads This will NOT travel: followed by one line per excluded item with its node count: Clarity, Dehaze, Midtone Detail, Softness, Diffusion, Grain (Texture tab), Masks, Healing, Frequency Separation, Text, and Crop, perspective and resize. A grade with a masked mixer adds This grade has a Layer node. Its masks do not travel, so every input covers the whole frame. or This grade has a Parallel node. Its masks do not travel, so every branch changes the whole frame. An unmasked parallel or layer mixer is included, with its blend modes and strength. Grain and halation from the Film Emulation tab travel as settings, and the sheet says so: in Verana the texture may differ slightly, and the exact grain pattern is not carried.

Export… opens a save panel for <name>.pprof; Cancel closes the sheet. A successful export shows Exported <file> with Show in Finder.

Four conditions prevent export. The menu item is grayed and carries the reason as its tooltip; choosing it from the card shows the reason in the sheet Can't export this profile.

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