GH4 GH4 and Impulz stills workflow.

[alohype]

Hi everyone!
I so love Impulz stocks that I started using them for stills. They're applicable for I would say any stills in RAW format. Unfortunately my current workflow is quite cumbersome and looks like:
1. Import stills in Lightroom with "auto" setting while they're added to Library.
2. Apply my custom "LOG like" preset that takes away all auto settings except exposure, set -70 to contrast, black and white point at détente position, recover shadows and lower highlights. This will serve sort of like a log profile.
3. Send them to edit in Photoshop and apply action with layers (starting from bottom):
- Generic LOG Cineon LUT
- saturation, exposure, color balance, levels, curves
- Cineon to Film Print LUT
4. After color correcting and grading them in Photoshop I send them back to Lightroom and apply further lens corrections, vignette etc. I give images some another small curve and other minor tweeks if I see they need it.
5. Export to jpeg and smile.

While it gives a great flexibility and results it takes A LOT of time to achieve it. Have anyone been experimenting with stills and Impulz LUTs? Have you got a simpler, faster workflow?
I was experimenting with Film Contrast versions and VS versions but they tend to have to much contrast. Just removing that step of correcting and grading in Photoshop (so just for applying LUTs) will make it a lot faster.

 

[yslee]

I don't use Impulz, but is there a chance they will release Lightroom filters? That'll save you a lot of time.

 

[alohype]

I don't use Impulz, but is there a chance they will release Lightroom filters? That'll save you a lot of time.

Would be great, but it still won't fully replicate LUTs. As far as I could read from Lightroom presets source code it only adjust groups of colours/luminance etc., those settings that are hardcoded into Lightroom. Luts transform whole colour space by recalculating every single colour. I'd love Adobe to update Lightroom to take LUTs. that would be an ideal situation.

 

[Bern Caughey]

Have you tried Lightroom/Photoshop plug-ins such as Exposure?

http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/

 

[alohype]

Have you tried Lightroom/Photoshop plug-ins such as Exposure?

http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/

Thanks! Looks great, I will take a look.

 

[yslee]

Ugh, this probably explains why most plugins require a trip out of Lightroom, but not Photoshop. I guess you are stuck for now. Personally I still do a lot of editing in Photoshop and only minor adjustments are done in Lightroom.

 

[alohype]

Ugh, this probably explains why most plugins require a trip out of Lightroom, but not Photoshop. I guess you are stuck for now.

There's a possibility that those plugins bypass Lightroom and then get them back again.

Personally I still do a lot of editing in Photoshop and only minor adjustments are done in Lightroom.

I know, I was using Camera RAW before, but working in Lightroom is so much faster and more intuitive (not with my workflow though ).

 

[mothmachine]

Why do you use the LOG LUT? I mean, I know why you do but I'm not sure that's a good idea. I wouldn't use a LOG LUT unless I was in 10-bit colorspace, I think you are losing data. I use the GH4 FC profiles, which aren't too much constrast if you skip the LOG step.

What I do is not as efficient as I would like but better I think than your system. I have all the GH4 FC LUTs grouped together as adjustment filters in one Photoshop document. When I see a photo that I want to correct in Bridge, I open it in Photoshop and then copy the adjustment layer group into the new document. Then I turn on and off visibility of the LUTs as needed.

And did you say you are not editing in RAW? That makes no sense whatsoever. You should leave those LUTs alone until you learn how to use those RAW controls! You don't even need LUTs if you get good with those. LUTs are just RAW presets, essentially.