Picture Instruments LUT Mixer is a plugin for FCPX and Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. As its name suggests it allows you to mix a combination of LUTs.
Using LUTs (Look Up Tables) in NLE systems is a popular way of creating a starting look. In most programs, LUTs can only be applied one after the other. Since most LUTs are optimized to be applied to a Log image you can end up with a weird looking image from applying multiple LUTs on top of each other.
To solve this dilemma, Picture Instruments has come up with LUT Mixer.
All LUTs can be increased up to a maximum intensity of 150%, so LUTs can be applied more intensely than they actually are. In addition 2 of the 5 possible LUTs can be applied negatively. Therefore a LUT which warms up the image can also be used to cool down the look or an individual saturation LUT can also be used to desaturate the image.
Key features
- Protection of skin tones from the influence of LUTs
- Subsequently restoring and adjusting skin tones
- Increase LUTs up to a maximum level of 150%
- Applying LUTs negatively instead of only positively
- Intuitive mixing of LUTs
- Simple adjustment of professional looks
- Standardized average calculation automatically adjusts the total intensity
- Suitable for LUT-systems (separate LUTs for colorings and contrasts)
But what happens with skin tones? Picture Instruments have dedicated a section to the skin tones to protect them from the tint of the LUTs and to adjust them separately if necessary.
For every loaded LUT, a selection switch can be used to determine whether it will be summed or applied as an average. All LUTs with their selection switch set to the sum icon will be added up. Color shifts towards the same direction will add up while differing LUTs shifting the same color in opposite directions will mutually weaken that color.
If several similar LUTs are loaded, summing them can result in over-intensive colors. The option “averaging” makes sure that you don’t have to adjust all LUTs if you adjust the intensity of one single LUT. When in averaging-mode, the intensity of all LUTs is not adjusted in absolutes. Their ratio is being calculated and then normalized to 100%. Therefore the cumulative intensity within the averaging group plays no role anymore.
Since this mode also normalizes very low values to 100% the averaging-group has a separate master control.
Price
LUT Mixer is available for $49 USD. You can also download a trial version for free to see if you like it before having to buy.
