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DaVinci Resolve uses both 1D and 3D LUTs, and supports LUTs in a variety of formats.
— .cube: DaVinci Resolve uses both 1D and 3D LUTs in the .cube format. 3D LUTs can be exported as 17x17x17, 33x33x33, or 65x65x65 cubes with 32-bit floating point processing. DaVinci Resolve can also read and use Shaper LUTs in the .cube format, but these must also be created outside of DaVinci Resolve. You should note that while 17-point LUTs are not recommended to use for grading, they are useful when exporting LUTs for on-set monitoring, to accommodate different display, calibration, and signal conversion devices.
— Panasonic VLUT format: DaVinci Resolve can both read and generate this LUT format, designed for use in the Panasonic VariCam camera ecosystem.
— Video Range LUTs: Beginning with DaVinci Resolve 17, support was added for importing LUTs that include additional metadata specifying them as processing image data in Video Range, rather than Full Range. More information about how to format LUTs as Video Range is included in the Developer Documentation available from the Help menu. Being able to specify whether a LUT is meant to be Video or Full Range allows LUT processing to automatically accommodate DaVinci Resolve’s data range setting pipeline for clip attributes, project settings, and output settings.
— CLF (common LUT format): CLFs use an XML format that is capable of encompassing a limited number of mathematical transforms in addition to traditional lookup-tables to do image processing. Promoted by the academy as the ideal LUT format for use with ACES, LMTs for ACES are recommended to be in the CLF format due to its increased precision and flexibility.
What’s the Difference Between a LUT and a Shaper LUT?
DaVinci Resolve is capable of importing and using LUTs within its 32-bit floating point image processing pipeline. The .cube format can be used as either a simple 33x33x33 3D LUT,
or as a shaper LUT, which is actually a method of using two LUTs, a 1D LUT and a 3D LUT together, that addresses signal processing issues that 3D LUTs alone can’t handle.
For processor efficiency, 3D LUTs are designed with reasonable lower and upper limits for the data they will handle. It’s well known that when a 3D LUT is fed values that are outside of the range that LUT is designed to handle, the out-of-range data will be clipped. Since many LUTs are designed with digital cinema workflows in mind, the practical result is that feeding a video signal with super-white in it to a 3D LUT that’s designed for full-range data (0–1) will clip the super-white part of the signal.
Shaper LUTs handle this issue by first using a 1D LUT to process video signals with out-of- range data, fitting the signal into a range that the 3D LUT won’t clamp. The output of the 3D LUT includes the reverse transformation, to effectively zero out the 1D LUTs transform, while retaining whatever processing the 3D LUT was meant to apply.
What’s the Difference Between a LUT and a Shaper LUT?
DaVinci Resolve is capable of importing and using LUTs within its 32-bit floating point image processing pipeline. The .cube format can be used as either a simple 33x33x33 3D LUT,
or as a shaper LUT, which is actually a method of using two LUTs, a 1D LUT and a 3D LUT together, that addresses signal processing issues that 3D LUTs alone can’t handle.
For processor efficiency, 3D LUTs are designed with reasonable lower and upper limits for the data they will handle. It’s well known that when a 3D LUT is fed values that are outside of the range that LUT is designed to handle, the out-of-range data will be clipped. Since many LUTs are designed with digital cinema workflows in mind, the practical result is that feeding a video signal with super-white in it to a 3D LUT that’s designed for full-range data (0–1) will clip the super-white part of the signal.
Shaper LUTs handle this issue by first using a 1D LUT to process video signals with out-of- range data, fitting the signal into a range that the 3D LUT won’t clamp. The output of the 3D LUT includes the reverse transformation, to effectively zero out the 1D LUTs transform, while retaining whatever processing the 3D LUT was meant to apply.
What’s the Difference Between a LUT and a Shaper LUT?
DaVinci Resolve is capable of importing and using LUTs within its 32-bit floating point image processing pipeline. The .cube format can be used as either a simple 33x33x33 3D LUT,
or as a shaper LUT, which is actually a method of using two LUTs, a 1D LUT and a 3D LUT together, that addresses signal processing issues that 3D LUTs alone can’t handle.
For processor efficiency, 3D LUTs are designed with reasonable lower and upper limits for the data they will handle. It’s well known that when a 3D LUT is fed values that are outside of the range that LUT is designed to handle, the out-of-range data will be clipped. Since many LUTs are designed with digital cinema workflows in mind, the practical result is that feeding a video signal with super-white in it to a 3D LUT that’s designed for full-range data (0–1) will clip the super-white part of the signal.
Shaper LUTs handle this issue by first using a 1D LUT to process video signals with out-of- range data, fitting the signal into a range that the 3D LUT won’t clamp. The output of the 3D LUT includes the reverse transformation, to effectively zero out the 1D LUTs transform, while retaining whatever processing the 3D LUT was meant to apply.
— DCTL: DCTL files are actually color transformation scripts that DaVinci Resolve sees and applies just like any other LUT. Unlike other LUTs, which are 1D or 3D lookup tables of values that approximate image transformations using interpolation, DCTL files are actually comprised of computer code that directly transforms images using combinations of math functions that you devise. Additionally, DCTL files run natively on the GPU of your workstation, so they can be fast. For more information on DCTL, see Chapter 197, “Creating DCTL LUTs.”
Shaper LUTs are also useful for dealing with extremely large data sets, such as OpenEXR files that can theoretically handle an image data range of –infinity to +infinity. Using a Shaper LUT, you can remap the incoming data to fit more precision in the 0–1 range, leaving less important data outside the range.
Shaper LUTs are also useful for dealing with extremely large data sets, such as OpenEXR files that can theoretically handle an image data range of –infinity to +infinity. Using a Shaper LUT, you can remap the incoming data to fit more precision in the 0–1 range, leaving less important data outside the range.
Shaper LUTs are also useful for dealing with extremely large data sets, such as OpenEXR files that can theoretically handle an image data range of –infinity to +infinity. Using a Shaper LUT, you can remap the incoming data to fit more precision in the 0–1 range, leaving less important data outside the range.