OMENEO LUTs for Sony A7r2

[photographer-at-large]

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/omeneo-releases-a-software-that-will-improve-the-sony-a7rii-quality/

[Don Kotlos]

"No more “Sony look”" aka "Correct s-gammut color interpretation"

There are some examples here: http://omeneo.com/primers/

Camera specific LUTs are always better than generic ones especially for sgammut, but instead of buying packages like that, I would just use another color mode and tune the individual channels to my liking. It takes me just 10 minutes...

Anyways, the neutral LUTs are the most interesting ones, since you can use them as a base and have secondary rec709 LUTs for a more specialized look. 

[omen]

Hi guys. I made these.

Hey Don, 10 LUTs in the package are color neutral. P01 Base is most subtle and best for further grading. P02-P10 are using specific gammas and very subtle color compensations optimized for different scenes, based on how the sensor responds. So primary color correction with this is set to minimum.

3 Primers (P11, P12, P13) are using an analog feel and are designed based on film photo prints, to allow a photographic aesthetic and feel in today's advanced camera in motion imagery. You may consider these as a free bonus. I made them initially for myself while testing A7R2 and playing with photographic prints, but threw them in the package for others as well. P11 also has neutral colors but with film gamma response and closer color behavior.

As for color modes you mention, any color mode you choose has color offsets throughout the range. Slog and S Gamut have the highest, but offer a wider captured range from the sensor. By simply tuning those channels you are not correcting those very specific offsets but the overall image and in camera especially it is done in far lower precision than 3DLUT does. This is much more complex than it may seem just on few frame grabs and quick and easy route cannot achieve this. It goes much much deeper and it took a lot of time and work.

 

 

http://omeneo.com/

 

 

 

[Oliver Daniel]

1 hour ago, omen said:

Hi guys. I made these.

Hey Don, 10 LUTs in the package are color neutral. P01 Base is most subtle and best for further grading. P02-P10 are using specific gammas and very subtle color compensations optimized for different scenes, based on how the sensor responds. So primary color correction with this is set to minimum.

3 Primers (P11, P12, P13) are using an analog feel and are designed based on film photo prints, to allow a photographic aesthetic and feel in today's advanced camera in motion imagery. You may consider these as a free bonus. I made them initially for myself while testing A7R2 and playing with photographic prints, but threw them in the package for others as well. P11 also has neutral colors but with film gamma response and closer color behavior.

As for color modes you mention, any color mode you choose has color offsets throughout the range. Slog and S Gamut have the highest, but offer a wider captured range from the sensor. By simply tuning those channels you are not correcting those very specific offsets but the overall image and in camera especially it is done in far lower precision than 3DLUT does. This is much more complex than it may seem just on few frame grabs and quick and easy route cannot achieve this. It goes much much deeper and it took a lot of time and work.

 

 

http://omeneo.com/

 

 

 

 

I'm curious to try these out, but I have the A7SII. 

Do you think the results will be similar enough? 

Also I'm finding that the A7 series does not accurately read white balance correctly - you have to set it to a different Kelvin then the actual scene and take away the green/yellow colour cast. This massively affects the colour if not done correctly. How are you going about it? 

Thanks

[omen]

Hey Oliver,

These Primers are for S-Log2 and S-Gamut and A7R2 color response. A7SII is best used with S-Log3 and S-Gamut 3 and requires a set of Primers specifically designed for that log coding and that color space and its specific tonality distribution. In the works.

I had little WB offsets but that is easily fixed. What Primers fix...isn't. And that's just a part of what they do.

 

 

 

 

http://omeneo.com/primers/

 

[Oliver Daniel]

13 hours ago, omen said:

Hey Oliver,

These Primers are for S-Log2 and S-Gamut and A7R2 color response. A7SII is best used with S-Log3 and S-Gamut 3 and requires a set of Primers specifically designed for that log coding and that color space and its specific tonality distribution. In the works.

I had little WB offsets but that is easily fixed. What Primers fix...isn't. And that's just a part of what they do.

 

 

 

 

http://omeneo.com/primers/

 

 

Slog3 is awful on the A7SII. Slog2 works better. 

Thanks for your hard work - I'm not really sure how much (if at all) the colour between the A7RII and A7SII in Slog2 differs. 

I'm working round the white balance issues, but i hope Sony get it right on their next releases. It should work properly and it doesn't. 

[omen]

What do you find problematic with Slog3 ?

I tested it on FS7 and it is noticeably better then Slog2. 

 

 

http://omeneo.com/primers/

[Don Kotlos]

On 3/18/2016 at 5:47 AM, omen said:

As for color modes you mention, any color mode you choose has color offsets throughout the range. Slog and S Gamut have the highest, but offer a wider captured range from the sensor. By simply tuning those channels you are not correcting those very specific offsets but the overall image and in camera especially it is done in far lower precision than 3DLUT does. This is much more complex than it may seem just on few frame grabs and quick and easy route cannot achieve this. It goes much much deeper and it took a lot of time and work.

Yes, with A7RII/S you cannot adjust all the offsets, but you shouldn't have to in order to have a balanced image.

SGamut offers a large range of colors but it has 4 problems :

1) Is hard to get good balanced colors when grading. 

2) It is easier to make WB and exposure errors and If factor in what Oliver mentioned it gets even worse. 

3) It is more sensitive to WB and exposure errors.

4) While it can record a large range of colors it does it in the tiny range of 16-235 which messes up color tonalities and increases banding especially when coupled with the highly compressed 4:2:0 H264 codec. 

So while your LUTs might help with the 1st, the other 3 problems remain. 

The profiles that already exist can give very nice natural results and minor tweaking of the color depth you can get an excellent starting point that can actually be more accurate than when using s-gammut. 

So while there is a need for correct sgammut interpretation which your LUTs might help a lot, it is my personal opinion that the majority of the A7RII/S users should avoid using sgammut if they want to have consistent results. The biggest reason that you can advertise your product as "No more “Sony look”" is because inexperienced people are using sgammut and not the other color profiles. A proper LUT from you can help but as I mentioned before it is just one of the 4 things that can go wrong with sgammut, and I doubt is going to help the majority of the people that much with that "Sony look", since they will be using slog2/sgammut thinking that a simple LUT will create wonders, only to realize it actually takes a lot of effort and knowledge to create a respectable image. 

5 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I'm working round the white balance issues, but i hope Sony get it right on their next releases. It should work properly and it doesn't. 

I know WB is off with Sonys but have you tried using a grey card + offset? Tedious I know, but should be more consistent and accurate than AWB. 

1 hour ago, omen said:

What do you find problematic with Slog3 ?

I tested it on FS7 and it is noticeably better then Slog2. 

Slog3 might work better on the FS7 that has a 10bit intra high bitrate codec, but on the A7sII produces visible banding quite frequently.  

[omen]

On 3/20/2016 at 6:29 PM, Don Kotlos said:

Yes, with A7RII/S you cannot adjust all the offsets, but you shouldn't have to in order to have a balanced image.

SGamut offers a large range of colors but it has 4 problems :

1) Is hard to get good balanced colors when grading. 

2) It is easier to make WB and exposure errors and If factor in what Oliver mentioned it gets even worse. 

3) It is more sensitive to WB and exposure errors.

4) While it can record a large range of colors it does it in the tiny range of 16-235 which messes up color tonalities and increases banding especially when coupled with the highly compressed 4:2:0 H264 codec. 

So while your LUTs might help with the 1st, the other 3 problems remain. 

The profiles that already exist can give very nice natural results and minor tweaking of the color depth you can get an excellent starting point that can actually be more accurate than when using s-gammut. 

So while there is a need for correct sgammut interpretation which your LUTs might help a lot, it is my personal opinion that the majority of the A7RII/S users should avoid using sgammut if they want to have consistent results. The biggest reason that you can advertise your product as "No more “Sony look”" is because inexperienced people are using sgammut and not the other color profiles. A proper LUT from you can help but as I mentioned before it is just one of the 4 things that can go wrong with sgammut, and I doubt is going to help the majority of the people that much with that "Sony look", since they will be using slog2/sgammut thinking that a simple LUT will create wonders, only to realize it actually takes a lot of effort and knowledge to create a respectable image. 

I know WB is off with Sonys but have you tried using a grey card + offset? Tedious I know, but should be more consistent and accurate than AWB. 

Slog3 might work better on the FS7 that has a 10bit intra high bitrate codec, but on the A7sII produces visible banding quite frequently.  

Hey Dan,

Primers correct the fixed offsets of the camera, deep within the signal and do that with S-Gamut. Additional WB offsets which result from that are taken care of. AWB camera function is another thing and has no relation. Other color profiles also mess up colors but in a different way, and all of them make the footage look very "digital" due to the way cameras of that type process the signal. Primers help with that and shape the image in a different way. One on their purposes is to correct the image, another is to reduce the digital feel. That is done through a number of methods I had to develop from scratch.

Another thing that other camera profiles do is reduce the DR. Primers don't. Another thing that camera profiles do is enhance the effects of 4:2:0 sampling. If you look closely at the footage shot with one of the picture profiles you may notice aliasing edges of strong saturated colors, as a result of in-camera processing boosting 4:2:0. That is reduced with Primers.

Regarding banding, that is a general problem with log + 8 bit 4:2:0 + h.264. I tested A7R2, A7S1 and currently working on A6300 and all three exhibit the same issues. Banding here and there and sometimes blobs of macroblocks having a party. That's the h.264. Log itself is not an issue, compression is. S-Log3 works nicely as well.

The issues mostly come from unexpected scene-dependent camera compression.

Going through your list:

1) Taken care of

2) Taken care of

3) Taken care of

4) Partially taken care of. Tonalities are ironed. The rest is a moving target and mostly depends on what a camera decides to throw away with compression. One cannot fix what isn't there.

I've had clean blue skies on tests, I've had minimal issues and I've had a circus, with clouds especially and around branches with clear skies behind, on all three cameras so far, and it is there in untouched XAVC-S, regardless of the under exposure or rich exposure, and exists regardless of later image manipulation, so that is out of reach for the transforms and up to Sony to fix. Much of the scenes work nicely with Primers even in XAVC-S. I do initial tests on XAVC-S to see the worst outcome. What doesn't work, has very little to do with Primers, they may just make the issue more visible, in which case they do not have to be applied in post and can be seen on the set with a 3DLUT capable monitoring solution.

That is why it is recommended on the Primers page to go with external recorders and Prores and 4:2:2 out and the issues are minimized. Today Prores recorders are much more accessible and those combined with Primers take the camera on the next level.

It is not a "simple LUT". Nothing about them is simple. A lot of time and work went into this, with N-revisions, custom developed analysis, optimization and testing methodology, inherited, adapted and further developed from broadcast and film post experience.

A7S1 Primers are done and available on the page, working on A6300 at the moment.

 

[Don Kotlos]

40 minutes ago, omen said:

It is not a "simple LUT". Nothing about them is simple. A lot of time and work went into this, with custom developed analysis, optimization and testing methodology, inherited, adapted and further developed from broadcast and film post experience.

I am glad you worked hard on this and I am eager to try out your LUTs.

40 minutes ago, omen said:

That is why it is recommended on the Primers page to go with external recorders and Prores and 4:2:2 out and the issues are minimized. Today Prores recorders are much more accessible and those combined with Primers take the camera on the next level.

If you have done tests that show the importance of an external recording, it would be great to share the results. There has been conflicting reports on their advantages with the A7rII/A7sII.

[Oliver Daniel]

1 hour ago, Don Kotlos said:

I am glad you worked hard on this and I am eager to try out your LUTs.

If you have done tests that show the importance of an external recording, it would be great to share the results. There has been conflicting reports on their advantages with the A7rII/A7sII.

I would also like to see this. 

For example, most LUTS are unusable with the 120fps mode on A7SII. It's like mini Lego bricks start dancing everywhere once applied. I've seen some articles claim the 120fps quality is the same as 25fps. It isn't at all. Not a chance. Curious to see what an Atomos Shogun would do to improve this and all other available frame rates. 

I think the work done by Omeneo here is interesting. I use the A7SII though and I'm unsure if the colour differs from the A7RII or A7SI. 

[aldolega]

46 minutes ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I've seen some articles claim the 120fps quality is the same as 25fps. It isn't at all. Not a chance. Curious to see what an Atomos Shogun would do to improve this and all other available frame rates. 

Nothing, because the camera doesn't output 120p over HDMI, only 60p and lower.

[omen]

13 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I would also like to see this. 

For example, most LUTS are unusable with the 120fps mode on A7SII. It's like mini Lego bricks start dancing everywhere once applied. I've seen some articles claim the 120fps quality is the same as 25fps. It isn't at all. Not a chance. Curious to see what an Atomos Shogun would do to improve this and all other available frame rates. 

I think the work done by Omeneo here is interesting. I use the A7SII though and I'm unsure if the colour differs from the A7RII or A7SI. 

It differs. Colorimetry differs between all three Sony cameras I tested.  I tried applying Primers designed for A7R2 on A7S1 and it doesn't work. Some color offsets differ so similar ones get improved, others drift in another direction. 

Also, gamma is not quite the same, seems to be slightly improved in A7R2, likely due to differences in ISO rating. I didn't test high frame rate due to reduced data per frame. XAVC is already compressed on the border of usable regarding visible artefacts.

It should be taken into consideration that this codec is not designed for acquisition but delivery. Higher level and profile of h.264 would be much more usable or even better h.265 so hopefully that is being considered by Sony. Their sensors are excellent in performance, but the final outcome is severely limited by compression. Primers can improve the colorimetry and visual aesthetic,  the compression part is up to Sony.

[5mars]

Hi Omen, could you share video samples ?

[jase]

2 hours ago, omen said:

It differs. Colorimetry differs between all three Sony cameras I tested.  I tried applying Primers designed for A7R2 on A7S1 and it doesn't work. Some color offsets differ so similar ones get improved, others drift in another direction. 

Too bad. I hoped for using those on the RX100 IV, but bad luck apparently...

[jgharding]

3 hours ago, omen said:

It should be taken into consideration that this codec is not designed for acquisition but delivery. Higher level and profile of h.264 would be much more usable or even better h.265 so hopefully that is being considered by Sony. Their sensors are excellent in performance, but the final outcome is severely limited by compression. Primers can improve the colorimetry and visual aesthetic,  the compression part is up to Sony.

That's the main point of frustration isn't it? It's a laudable effort on your part to attempt to fix these things in such great detail, but they could make it all so much easier if they just used level 5.2 high and just cranked it out in 422 10-bit, for example, or used high-level HEVC H265.

They are designing some incredibly innovative sensors, and then hobbling them with trashy delivery codecs, the goal seemingly being "how much can we squash it before it's unusable" rather than "how much data can we save and still keep file size reasonable". But then they have a broad sweep of products to protect.

Compare their "high" bit codecs to Canon C100 AVCHD for example and most of them are poor. I don't know how they implement this stuff, but it's not really working.

[omen]

On 4/20/2016 at 11:05 AM, 5mars said:

Hi Omen, could you share video samples ?

Sure, as soon as the time allows it.

23 hours ago, jase said:

Too bad. I hoped for using those on the RX100 IV, but bad luck apparently...

I'm waiting to get my hands on RX10M2...all cool.

22 hours ago, jgharding said:

That's the main point of frustration isn't it? It's a laudable effort on your part to attempt to fix these things in such great detail, but they could make it all so much easier if they just used level 5.2 high and just cranked it out in 422 10-bit, for example, or used high-level HEVC H265.

They are designing some incredibly innovative sensors, and then hobbling them with trashy delivery codecs, the goal seemingly being "how much can we squash it before it's unusable" rather than "how much data can we save and still keep file size reasonable". But then they have a broad sweep of products to protect.

Compare their "high" bit codecs to Canon C100 AVCHD for example and most of them are poor. I don't know how they implement this stuff, but it's not really working.

Yup, hoping the increase in recording quality is being considered. I'm doing my best to improve the results based on what is possible.

[Emanuel]

3 minutes ago, omen said:

Sure, as soon as the time allows it.

I'm waiting to get my hands on RX10M2...all cool.

Now you already have the next generation:

http://www.sony.com/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-rx10m3

[omen]

Few examples when the circus starts. This is with one generation loss from frame grabs taken from the video then pushed, in Resolve results are better. Intentional approach to show few principles happening and why all the fuss.

A6300, 1080p XAVC-S, 1:1 crop

First example - direct frame grab from S-Log3, S-Gamut3, taken into Photoshop with contrast and saturation

Second example - same frame grab with test Primer applied, nothing else.

 

 

Notice how the second image almost looks like it has been blurred due to more gradual transitions in between. Also, notice how the second image although has more saturated and "healthier" blues has reduced compression visibility due to finer transitions.  This is because the signal has been "ironed" on micro level, to fix the hue/saturation/luminosity offsets which, once enhanced in color correction, increase the visibility of compression.

This is the example when Primers help in this context. In some cases the results are the same, depending on the amount/type of compression artifacts. This is the third benefit of Primers. That particular compression related part wasn't planned, I discovered it through parallel tests later.

 

[jase]

4 hours ago, omen said:

I'm waiting to get my hands on RX10M2...all cool.

Great news! I will be definitely willing to give you comprehensive feedback