Apply your Custom LUT directly to BRAW in Premiere Pro

March 18th, 2022

BRAW Studio now lets you apply your own custom LUT, processed through the official Blackmagic RAW SDK like an Embedded LUT ! Here is a quick tutorial to do so

Let's see in this article how to use your own custom LUT (as .cube file) with BRAW Studio !

Note : This feature is for now in BETA, because some LUTs could be not supported. Please send us feedback if it does not work for you !

The initial "Embedded LUT" option

When recording BRAW, you can apply some LUT directly from the Camera. By doing this when recording, a LUT option will appear in the BRAW Settings during Post Production : the "Apply LUT" checkbox.

So the LUT you chose from the Camera is now inside the BRAW file and can be applied or not when decoding the image.

It means that the LUT is processed with the official Blackmagic RAW Decoder SDK designed by Blackmagic Design (which we are always using in BRAW Studio to decode your BRAW file), and should give you the best possible result !

The "Sidecar LUT" option

There is another way of applying a LUT through the BRAW engine, which is less known : it's from the sidecar file.

The sidecar file is a file with the same filename than the BRAW file and located next to it, but instead of having the ".braw" extension, it has a ".sidecar" extension.

The sidecar can contain some BRAW parameters (such as exposure, white balance, ISO, etc ..), but also

can contain an entire LUT data

When this sidecar contains a LUT,

a new option becomes available in the BRAW Settings : you can choose "Sidecar" in the "LUT Source" dropdown !

The BRAW sidecar file has also a particularity : the BRAW parameters it contains will be used when choosing "Decode Using" -> "Camera Metadata", so the basic look of your BRAW if you don't change anything.

It means that if you change the BRAW Settings in Premiere Pro and export the sidecar, when looking at it in the BRAW Player, in Davinci Resolve or in After Effects, you will see the footage with the BRAW Settings changed in the sidecar directly without doing anything.

Autokroma BRAW Studio Custom LUT ApplyLUTButton

Apply your custom LUT directly to a Blackmagic RAW clip in Premiere Pro

From BRAW Studio 2.7.0,

you can now put your own LUT into the sidecar automatically with a tool we made in the BRAW Studio Panel in Premiere Pro !

First, select a BRAW clip in the timeline or in the Project Panel, and click on the "Add LUT to Sidecar" button in the BRAW Studio Panel.

Autokroma BRAW Studio Custom LUT Click Add LUT To Sidecar

Then choose the Cube LUT file you want to apply in your computer.

Autokroma BRAW Studio Custom LUT Choose LUT cube File

And .. Voilà ! it will be automatically applied to the BRAW file and you will be able to change this behavior with the "Apply LUT" checkbox and/or "LUT Source" dropdown.

Autokroma BRAW Studio Custom LUT Applied

You can even do that for multiple BRAW files at once

, if you first select multiple BRAW clips !

Applying a LUT from BRAW VS from Lumetri

The main reason to use BRAW Studio over Lumetri is to get the best quality from your LUT. Applying your LUT from Lumetri processes it on a 8 bpc BRAW file if you don't pay attention to your sequence settings.

Having the LUT inside the BRAW Sidecar file instead of Lumetri also offers another advantage : you will get this LUT applied wherever you are ! So if you are using this clip in After Effects, or in DaVinci Resolve, or even if you play the footage in the BRAW Player, you will see the LUT applied on your footage.

What do you think of this feature ? Will you apply your LUT with the BRAW Studio Panel now ? Send us feedback !