How to Work with the Leeming LUT for Panasonic HLG in FCP X 10.4

Update: See new workflow with Leeming Fixie LUT here.

For those looking to work with Sony’s HLG, here’s the workflow.

Apple has gone ahead and and released what can only be described as a humungous update for Final Cut Pro, including the ability to edit 360° video, advanced color grading tools like curves and wheels, look up tables without the need to use third-party plug-ins, support for high dynamic range video and a whole bunch more. The latter is of especial interest to me, since I’m looking forward  to diving into creating HDR videos for YouTube. But while on the surface, the UI looks reassuringly familiar, those who shoot HLG for rec. 709 delivery using the Leeming LUT may be in for some unpleasant surprises. The first of those will undoubtedly be the appearance of imported clips – whereas in FCP X v.10.3.4, the clips looked rather normal, in v.10.4, they’re all going to look blown-out.

Apple’s White Paper, Working with Wide Color Gamut and High Dynamic Range in Final Cut Pro X, recommends first selecting your project and pressing Control + Command + J in order to change the color gamut from SDR to WDR (or vice versa), but doing so just reveals that the color space in the pop-up window is greyed out – at least it does for me. Reading further on, I see that it’s possible to view the clips in the browser by going into preferences and selecting ‘Show HDR as raw values’. 

But this feature has no effect whatsoever when viewing clips in the timeline. The scopes far exceed the safe limits for rec. 709 and the image still looks overly bright. You will even see a warning in the upper left corner of the app alerting you to connect an external HDR monitor!

Checking the info for the clip in the Inspector, it becomes immediately apparent that even though we’ve chosen Standard Gamut for our project, the media is still rec. 2020. What you’ll want to do now is to select all the clips in your project and hit the ‘Basics’ tab at the bottom of the Inspector, then select ‘Settings’.

In ‘Settings’, choose rec. 709 in the Color Space Override column. The clips will then take on a flatter, greyish cyan appearance and the scopes should hopefully be in the safe zone again.

Now you’re ready to rock-n-roll. You can use the look up table in Final Cut Pro, but I’m still using the adjustment layer and LUT Utility I purchased from Color Grading Central way back when. I drop the adjustment layer over the clips in the timeline, open up the Effects Browser, and double click on LUT Utility.

In the Inspector, I choose Leeming LUT One – Panasonic HLG v501.

At this point, there might be a more scientifically sound method, but I just choose the percentage that looks best to my eyes.

Now, you’re ready to do color corrections and add a Leeming LUT Quickie for a more stylized look.

Alternatively, you could use Final Cut Pro’s own Custom LUT utility. Open up the Effects Browser, and under the Color Tab, you’ll find Custom LUT. You may either select a clip in the timeline and double click on Custom LUT, or drag the effect directly onto the clip.

Custom LUT will now appear in the Inspector.

Go ahead and choose choose a LUT from your computer.

And you’re off to the races!

[edit, 3/1/2018] There’s been a major development! Paul Leeming has just issued two new ‘Fixie LUTs’ for those working in Final Cut Pro and Premiere 2018 – one for Full to Video Range and the other for Video to Full Range.

http://www.visceralpsyche.com/downloads/Leeming_LUT_Fixies.zip

See DVXuser thread for more information.