LUTs & CDLs: How do you manage them project to project?

Posted by Troy Mathis in Cinematography 0 views · 3 replies

Hey everyone,

I'm a grip, but I've been diving deeper into the post-production side of things lately, especially color. I'm trying to wrap my head around effective show LUT and CDL management. We just finished a commercial shoot on an ALEXA 35, and the DIT was great, but I noticed a few times where we were juggling different versions of the creative LUTs.

On smaller projects, like a short film I DP'd recently using a Pocket Cinema Camera 6K G2, I just made a single LUT and stuck with it, maybe tweaking CDLs in Resolve later. But with more complex shoots, it feels like there's a lot more to track. I've been experimenting with naming conventions and folder structures, but it still feels a bit loose.

How do you pros handle it? Do you have a specific system for version control or a clear hand-off process? I'm looking for methods that scale well and keep things organized for the colorist.

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