Editing BRAW with Automatic LUT?

[Nicolas Favre]

Hello,

I’m part of the team who develops BRAW Studio (Plugin for Premiere Pro and BRAW), so I have some answers about your questions.

So first, let’s talk about LUT inside BRAW footages.

When you’re shooting a BRAW file with a LUT applied (should be a setting in your BM camera), the LUT is automatically added inside the BRAW file. Then, in the BRAW Source Settings, you can decide in post production to apply this LUT or not (same things with other parameters : when you shoot, you can decide to shoot with ISO 400, and decide later in post production to change this parameter to another value).

Note that if you are working with sidecar (Sidecar is a file located next to your BRAW footage, which can give some “default” look” different than when the look decided at shooting time), you can also put a LUT inside this sidecar, and in Source Settings, you will have the choice between applying the LUT “embedded” (inside the BRAW file, so the LUT added by the camera at shooting time), or “sidecar” (the LUT inside the sidecar file).

The default value applied when you are opening a BRAW file in Premiere Pro should be :
IF sidecar is present next to the BRAW file
THEN apply the parameters from the Sidecar
ELSE apply the parameters used when shot

So let’s come back to your problem. There can be several explanations. If you added a sidecar next to the BRAW file (or if there was a sidecar and not anymore next to your BRAW file), then it’s normal if the behaviour changed.

But I suspect more a bug from the Blackmagic Plugin. Note that some bug have been reported for this plugin (Here is a list : https://www.autokroma.com/blog/BlackmagicRaw-Plugin-BRAW-Studio-Difference). I suspect that after you rebuilt your computer, you installed a new time the Blackmagic RAW Plugin (from a newer version ?) and maybe there has been a bug which reset the “Apply LUT” parameter in the Source Settings of your BRAW Clip. Sounds like a bad bug if users can’t rely of the integrity of the Source Settings when updating the plugin … (Updating the plugin should NEVER change the look of an existing project : that could destroy hours of work).

So if you want to have the “LUT look” for your BRAW file, you can just change the “Apply LUT” parameter in the BRAW Source Settings (In the Effect Controls Panel : at the top click on the “Master” tab). But you will need to do it for each BRAW files in your project.

I would suggest also to switch to BRAW Studio (our plugin) for your next project (It’s better to keep the same plugin for an existing project). It’s not free as the Blackmagic Plugin, but you will not get this kind of bug, and also you could benefit of lot of features related to BRAW files. We have “BRAW Presets” that you can save / apply, and soon you will be able to apply only “partial presets”. With this and the Panel, you will be able to select many BRAW clips in your timeline, and then in one click : apply LUT (or reversely : not apply LUT) for these clips.

If you have more questions, you can contact us : https://www.autokroma.com/contact

Also, we have in mind to give users the ability to enter Custom LUT inside the BRAW parameter (You could load any LUT from your computer then). It’s not sure for now, but you can upvote for this in this form we launched some days ago for the future features which we would want to implement in BRAW Studio. The form is at the bottom of this article : https://www.autokroma.com/blog/BRAW-Studio-Our-Progress-And-Future-Features.

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AfterCodecs and BRAW Studio plugins for Adobe CC -https://autokroma.com/
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[Josh Logan]

Wow!! Thank you so much for this very useful information! I didn’t actually know about all these parameters inside Premiere, nor did I know the extraordinary capability of the BRAW system as I don’t actually own one and I’m just cutting. I was just using my normal RAW/Proxy workflow as I would with a RED or SONY camera. That’s awesome!
Interestingly, the proxies that I rendered, while cutting before I had to rebuild my system, looked the SAME as the BRAW footage when I toggled on and off. When I open the proxy and BRAW files individually, they look RAW (washed out), as they do now in Premiere. In the pre-rebuild cutting project, BOTH the proxy AND the BRAW looked as though they had a LUT applied. Does that mean that Premiere would have been applying the LUT to both? I guess that’s the only thing that makes sense.
I didn’t know about the settings to turn on or off the LUT on individual clips inside Premiere! How cool! It must have been a default setting of some kind, and maybe after the rebuild it defaulted to something else. Honestly, I have a VERY hard time finding information about this in the Support section on the Black Magic website. The hardware stuff is easy to navigate — but the software section basically just reads like a newsfeed. There’s no simple list of downloadable software and support material I could find. If I type BRAW into the search bar, it can’t find anything. I would have loved to have read more about this functionality but I couldn’t find the information! Is it somewhere easy and I’m just missing it?
THANK YOU for your quick response — this sounds like something I’ve been aching for for years, and I can’t wait to dig in!
Josh

[Josh Logan]

THANK YOU for all the awesome thorough details! As I mentioned above, I didn’t actually know about all this amazing functionality — and now I’m stoked!
If I start cutting more with BRAW I’ll definitely consider your product, it sounds very well thought out. I hope I get that opportunity, this is great!
Thanks again!
Josh