Alternative to pomfort/cinestyle LUT

[leeburnett]

Heeeello.

I've been using cinestyle picture style quite a lot recently for some indoor shoots of a band, as the light is quite low and it definitely helps me get some extra details.

What LUT would you recommend is the best? I've been using pomfort trial version, but not sure whether I want to pay for it... are there any other options that are better, or can I do it myself in FCPX with the same results?

It seems like it's just a curves diagram it's using to bring back contrast, am I missing something?

Thanks

 

[Samuel H]

Yes, the LUT is just a simple curve, it looks like this:

I'd obviously argue that using Flaat would be a better option: great skin tones, cleaner midtones in the final footage, and even easier to grade:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-picture-styles/index.html

You can guess the reason for the cleaner midtones just by looking at the equivalent Flaat_10 curve:

That's a lot less aggressive, it stretches the very limited 8-bit color space to a lesser extent

 

[leeburnett]

So pomfort doesn't add any sort of sharpening or saturation? or does saturation get a boost when the curve is added? I thought curves were purely increased contrast between lows and highs?

Just want to know whether if I increase contrast manually it will have the same effect? Then add sharpness and colour grade afterwards?

Thanks

 

[Samuel H]

I don't know about pomfort, I've just looked at the Technicolor LUT, and it is a simple RGB curve like the one above (so: exactly the same result applying LUT or curve) (in fact, you can open the LUT with a text editor and plot the curve in excel if you want)