What is philmColor R3?
philmColor is an expansive collection of LUTs built around the RED IPP2 Color Workflow. The LUTs range from creative looks to useful tools for colorists in post. It’s been a journey since the last release in 2017. Thousands of productions have used these LUTs on set, in post, and I’ve loved seeing the BTS grabs of the LUTs loaded on set. philmColor’s success has allowed me invest a lot of time into people’s requests, project looks, and more. A great deal of testing by individuals, studios, and productions commenced as well as creating more looks for my own projects. This led to an opportunity to even create the small selection of LUTs you get inside RED’s new DSMC3 cameras. But I assure you that is merely a taste of the feast I’ve included in PCR3.
As many have figured out you can also use philmColor with other cameras by transforming your incoming footage into the REDWideGamutRGB Color Space and Log3G10 Gamma. There’s an emphasis on cross camera combatility for this release as it’s pretty common to have a few different cameras on set.
Motion Picture Film has remained the source of my inspiration and you will find hints of familiar hues, tones, and density that stretch across modern through vintage Kodak and Fujifilm stocks. As alwasy the goal was and is to produce digital stocks useful to the modern filmmaker that will work with a variety of lighting conditions and exposure methods. At key, under key, high key, or ETTR exposure methods work very well with these LUTs.
In Release 3 you get a total of 540 new LUTs with the purchase of philmColor as well as the previous 178 from philmColor R2. A duanting collection of LUTs, but I assure it’s not about the number, I’ve been working on this release for almost 4 years now to create a sensible and long lasting collection of looks for RED’s IPP2 workflow.
I’ve created philmColor R3’s LUTs to be used as a RED IPP2 grading toolbox and is essentially a modular LUT workflow. As such I’ve organized the LUTs not only into individual categories, but also generally the order I suggest using them in you choose to cook up more complicated looks. LUT workflow is an interesting topic industry-wide, but there’s many reasons why many productions choose this pathway and it comes down to control and consistency, which is an important aspect of professional image making. Colorist can take these LUTs and build out looks as well as just take inspiration from the direction they are taking things for a final grade. Many ways to work really. My goals are flexibilty, versatility, and compatibility.
What’s included with philmColor R3?
– col_labDevAndSat – 21 new saturation, density, and development LUTs
– crv_curves – 12 new tone curve LUTs
– crv_fades – 8 new faded tone curve LUTs – click to learn more
– crv_tones – 36 new perceptual, ETTR, film print characteristic curve LUTs
– grd_achromic – 10 new “colorless” black and white LUTs
– grd_polychromic – 70 new “digital film stock” LUTs
– grd_printSplitTone – 27 new color split tone LUTs with cool, neutral, and warm variants
– grd_revisedBaseStocks – 20 updated LUTs based on some of the most popular looks from philmColor R2
– grd_schema – 204 new creative color scheme LUTs, bolder looks, shooting stocks, show looks, and more
– out_ARC – 4 new Output Transforms in 33 and 65 sized cubes in both SDR and HDR with several black points
– out_PFE_CLR – My clear version of my hard clipped and limited range 13 and 15 stop Kodak Print LUTs with 4 black points
– out_RED – Including the SDR and HDR versions of RED’s default Medium Contrast/Soft Highlight Roll-Off Output Transforms
– out_resolveFilmLooks – 6 special Output Transforms based on Resolve’s Film Looks with two black points
– out_STEM – 3 new Color Space Grading STEMs (no tone curve) for Colorists and Advanced Users
– utl_colorSpaceTransforms – 10 Color Space Tranforms from various manufacturer’s Color Spaces and Gamma
– plus all the previous LUTs from philmColor2
Examples of each category of philmColor R3
Across 15 categories, there’s a lot to cover. I’ve included some examples and explanations of what each category is designed to do. But I urge you to explore each category. This is an incredibly deep release. I have organized them with a keycode and a prefix so you never get lost in which LUT or LUTs you’re using or where to find them. “Col” stands for color, “crv” stands for Curve, “grd” stands for Grade, “out” stands for Output Transform, and “utl” stands for Utility.
col_labDevAndSat – 21 New LUTs
This is a collection of saturation models, density modifiers, and development LUTs. I’ve created two new Bleach Bypass models for PCR3 which when combined with some of the stronger curves create a very nice stylized look. For nature filmmakers who have dealth with a hazy day or sky that’s semi-not ideal, there’s a few boosters for the highlights. I’m particularly fond of my “chromes” which feature unique color models leaning towards a dense and vibrant look as well as one print inspired model. Subtractive color density as well as additive to impact the weight of those hues towards a very film-like color response. A Sub CMY model which will actually change how color is drawn a bit. Two “natSat” models that may provide a bit more of a perceptual tuned lower level of saturation and color density. A fun negative and negative tone only look for those who understand the feeling of inversion 🙂 Two scrubbed looks which appear to desaturate just the highlights as if they were scrapped from the print. And two subtractive tools to boost and reduce color accordingly. These are really designed for grading usages as dialing down their opacity or gain allows for personal tuning towarsd the look you’re after. Here’s just a few examples.