Color Management and LUTs

Each source has one color declaration — what the picture is and what it is shown as — and one look file. The Color window shows them, the color editor sets them.

The Color Window

The window is titled Vector — Color and starts closed. Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+C opens it, or the icon in the Sources Palette.

Each source Vector remembers gets one collapsing row, closed at first, showing its name, input label and outcome. A row turns amber when it needs attention. Opening it shows that source’s color controls.

At the bottom is a ledger headed What the shell would ask the engine for, and what the engine is holding. One line per source: the transform Vector would install, then the answer — the engine holds {word}, the engine has not been read back yet before the window has asked, or Nothing: the engine can see no source to install a transform on.

The Color Editor

The editor sets the declaration from three places:

The source’s own row in the Color window.
A slot’s settings in the Sources Palette, under Color · {label}.
The Input surface’s Color management block.

The first two set that source’s declaration, the third the default an undeclared source follows.

Its rows, in order:

Source is: — press Follow the signal to take the picture as it comes, or IDT to name the camera.
IDT: — the camera. One pick sets a gamma and a gamut together, as a camera names them. The list is grouped by maker.
Gamma: — the camera’s log curve.
Gamut: — the color range it recorded.
Exposure: — shown only for ARRI LogC3: EI 400, EI 800, EI 1600 or EI 3200.
Output (ODT): — what the picture is shown in. An ODT is a display transform: a gamma and a gamut, and one row is None (shown untransformed).

The Gamma: menu offers nine rows: Sony S-Log3, ARRI LogC3 (EI 800), Canon C-Log3, RED Log3G10, Panasonic V-Log, Blackmagic Design Film Gen 5, ACEScc, ACEScct and Linear. The gamut menu offers one row, the gamut that pairs with the log on screen. Behind them, the full catalogue has 35 transfers and 21 gamuts.

The Output (ODT): menu has five rows, and all twelve cameras reach all five:

Rec.709 (BT.1886), 100 nit — the SDR display, and the default for an undeclared source.
P3-D65 — a DCI-P3 display for wide-gamut SDR, through a 2.6 gamma.
Rec.2100 ST 2084, 1000 nit — PQ over Rec.2020, for HDR.
Rec.2100 HLG, 1000 nit (P3-D65 limited) — HLG over Rec.2020, for HDR.
ACES2065-1 (AP0), linear — the ACES working space, to hand material on.

Choosing one decodes the camera’s log and moves its primaries to the space you chose. Nothing is tone-mapped.

A declaration Vector cannot bake is stored and labelled, and the picture is shown untransformed. The message beside the controls shows it:

No transform is baked for {log}: this build’s transforms are a closed set, and {log} is not in it. The source is shown untransformed.

Look Files

Choose a look on the Look: row, whose hint text is path to a .cube or a CLF.

Browse…, Load, Reload and Clear are beside it, and Reload and Clear appear only while a look is in force.

Recently used looks are listed under the field, newest first. Press one to load it.

Load refuses a file that will not parse. Reload tries it again. Clear stops using it.
Vector loads .cube and .clf, whatever the case of the extension, and refuses any other name with a sentence giving the file, the fault and the fix.
A 3D lattice runs from 2 to 256 on a side and a 1D curve from 2 to 65536 points. The entry count must match the declared size.
A look is installed on the source, after the decode and before the picture is shown, so the display and every scope on that source use the same graded pixels.
A look is in force or absent, at full strength. To stop using it, press Clear or choose None (shown untransformed).

Vector remembers a look’s path in sources.json in its config directory: on macOS, ~/Library/Application Support/com.FetchMediaTools.Vector/sources.json. Vector loads it again only when you choose a look or press Reload.

Browse… opens the system’s file picker, filtered to look files.