How to Easily Apply Cube Color Grading to SONY SLOG2 Images on macOS

Introduction

Color grading is an essential part of the post-production process in photography and videography. If you’ve captured images using a SONY mirrorless camera in SLOG2, you’ll notice that the colors appear washed out. To convert these to rec 709 for a more natural color profile, you can easily use a .cube color grading file.

In this article, we’ll explore a quick and efficient way to apply Cube color grading files to images using ffmpeg on a macOS system.

Prerequisites

• macOS operating system

• ffmpeg installed (you can install it via Homebrew by running brew install ffmpeg)

• .cube color grading file. You can download Sony’s Look Profile from here.

• Images captured in SLOG2 from a SONY mirrorless camera

Single Image Color Grading Using ffmpeg

To apply Cube color grading to a single image, you can use the following command:

ffmpeg -i images/DSC00001.JPG  -vf "lut3d=From_SLog2SGumut_To_SLog2-709_.cube" output.jpg

Batch Processing Multiple Images

If you have a collection of images to process, follow these steps:

Step 1: Create Directories

mkdir images graded_images

Step 2: Move Images

Copy all the images you want to process into the images directory.

Step 3: Run Batch Command

for i in images/*.JPG; do
  ffmpeg -i "$i" -vf "lut3d=From_SLog2SGumut_To_SLog2-709_.cube" "graded_images/graded_$(basename $i)"
done

Step 4: Check Output

Find the color-graded images in the graded_images directory.

Conclusion

Using ffmpeg on a macOS system to apply Cube color grading to SLOG2 images is straightforward. This guide makes it easy to convert your washed-out SLOG2 images into visually appealing rec 709 images. Happy color grading!