In the past I have written about the differences of digitally acquired images and the characteristics of film. Film being analogue has a slightly different response to light, color, and detail than it’s digital counterpart. The chemical process that film goes through mixed with the film stock used create iconic “looks” most try to achieve with digital. Digital capture has gotten to a point where it very closely matches film, but now there is a way to get the exact look. LookLabs has introduced a LUT tool available in Adobe SpeedGrade and Davinci Resolve 9 as well as Film Light, Scratch, and Lustre. You can now match your digitally acquired footage with a specific film stock down to the grain! That means no longer having to purchase seperate film grain plugins! These looks work on a variety of digitally acquired images ranging from the Canon 5D to the Red Epic, Vision Research Phantom, Sony F65 and Arri Alexa to name a few. What differentiates SpeedLooks from the competition is the fact that the LUT’s are calibrated to the specific film stocks to provide the most accurate and precise output by including camera specific patches to get every camera to a similar starting point. These patches get all the footage to a log or flat (logC) state to then apply the looks. This gets the most out of every camera without any effort.
Check out these video’s for an introduction:
Now you might say, why would you recommend these over the other film look plugins? I can honestly say I have tested all the film stock emulation plugins and software currently available on the market and nothing is as accurate as SpeedLooks. You can quote me!
SpeedLooks is optimized for the latest digital cinema cameras, however, you can use them on any footage recorded in LOG color space. Included is our specialized camera patch technology, allowing you to customize your look specifically for the camera you shot on. You can optimize for the Alexa, RED, C300, Canon 5D/7D and the Sony F series cameras. Our camera patch technology is an ideal way to give footage from multiple cameras a consistent look. SpeedLooks uses LOG C for our base color space – we call it ‘SpeedLog’. Our camera patch technology automatically converts your camera footage to SpeedLog, which creates a consistent and optimized look across all cameras and footage. If you’re including linear color space footage – shot on any HD camera in any format – into your production, we’ve included a speciallinear patch to help give you a consistency with LOG images.
SpeedLooks is perfect for movies, music videos, on-the-fly sports highlights, documentaries, commercials or any project that requires a high-end 35mm finish. Rich and dynamic colors, even skin tones and the subtleties of the traditional film – SpeedLooks will become an essential part of your tool kit.
Here is a before and after with a Red One MX camera:
Red Epic:
The great thing about SpeedLooks being LUT’s is that you can infinitely adjust the image once the LUT is applied. Therefore you can get to the base image, apply the camera patch and LUT you desire, then adjust to your hearts desire. Every color choice you make will directly respond to the LUT you use maintaining it’s film characteristics and response to color and contrast. That in itself is amazing! If your a seasoned colorist or not, SpeedLooks is a great start and finish to your footage. I highly recommend Clean3500 as your starting point.
Here are a couple samples of footage I shot and just literally dropped the Clean3500 Fuji LUT on a 2nd node in Resolve without any additional corrections. Obviously I could infinitely adjust and add a million nodes, but look at what you get with just the LUT in one node!
Shot on the Red Scarlet with Zeiss Super Speeds MkIII.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
SpeedLooks allows you to move beyond simple 1D color manipulation into the world of real time 3DLUTs, non-destructive deep color correction. SpeedLooks is a finely tuned plug-in that allows your footage to look and respond just like traditional film. It’s fully integrated with the Adobe SpeedGrade CS6 Suite of Tools and DaVinci’s Resolve 9.
Before and after with the 5D Mark II:
LookLabs continually posts free tutorials and before and after videos on their Vimeo page. Check them out for more visual proof. I highly recommend you consider SpeedLooks for your digital tool kit. Your images will greatly improve with one click of the mouse. There are several packages to choose from, but I highly recommend starting with the 3500 Clean Package which includes the standard Fuji and Kodak LUT’s. Every post house should own this collection!
Sony EX before and after:
LookLabs also has an option to email them a JPEG to test the looks so you can choose ahead of time what package you want! Can’t beat that!
The price of SpeedLooks may throw you off initially, but there are NO resolution restrictions like other available options. You will not be disappointed.
Previous SpeedLooks reviews/previews:
http://www.toolfarm.com/blog/entry/sneek_peek_speedlooks_products_for_speedgrade_new_in_adobe_cs6
http://blogs.adobe.com/movingcolors/2012/08/02/extending-speedgrade-with-speedlooks/
http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/04/introducing-speedlooks-by-looklabs/
