I’ve been experimenting a little with Color Look Up Tables (LUTs) mainly in the effort to achieve similar color processing and tones between related images in pursuit of a common look or ‘theme’ to the images. My first examples here are images from the Cinque Terre, Italy. I chose these images because a Teal and Orange focused Color LUT fits them well and this particular color combination is a favorite.
I’m not sure I really know what I’m doing yet but I’m thinking I’d like to build a small library of some of my favorite Color LUTs to regularly use in color adjustment on selected images.
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Note: Thus far I’ve been using Affinity Photo and Aurora HDR 2019 in my efforts.
Well, I have to tell you that your efforts turned out rather brilliantly, well worth it. The colour tones have a nice subdued vibrancy to them. Suits the scenes perfectly and does a great job of bringing the images together as a set. I might need to look into using LUTs too. I’ve heard them mentioned a fair bit lately but hadn’t really paid much attention.
Thanks, Cedric! I’m very much still at the beginning of the learning process about LUTs but I do like how they can set a “look” for an image or add consistency of color and tonality across a series of images.
I have been a fan of LUTs for certain images that might bring out the “cinematic” look. Given they have been used for film color grading for a long time, I suppose that’s only natural. I used an amber one as a starting point in my dune dragon series. It just seemed to bring a consistency to many different images that were part of a theme.
I think the Orange/Teal one works terrific with these, especially since they are coastal scenes. I haven’t played with them in the new version of Aurora yet. I hope they updated how they are utilized and allow you to add favorites. I didn’t like going to my file folders to look up where they stored them. I’d rather have a shortcut right within the program.
Mark, thanks. I don’t know that LUTs will play a large role in my post-processing efforts but I like, as you stated, their use for getting a certain ‘look’ or providing consistency. In any case, it’s always nice to have another tool in the image toolbox and learning/experimenting is half the fun! :-)
I remember your dragon series and that amber LUT work wonderfully! 👍