LUT´s - what am I doing wrong

[Farsen]

Hi.

I would like to colorgrade my footage with LUT´s like the examples in this Phoenix package: Phoenix I am trying but simply cannot get my footage to look anywhere near the examples on the sites that sell´s LUTs, instead it looks horrible. And I would like to know why

This is my approach from start to finish:

1. I set my fps to 60, my shutter speed to 120, white balance to 5,6k check the EV value and put on the appropriate ND filter. In the following example, I put on a ND8 filter. The drone is shooting in D-log with contrast, saturation and sharpness to -3.
This is my result, and I think it looks as it color-wise should?:

2. When editing in premiere, I confirm that none of the blacks and whites are crushed, and I guess it looks OK, even though I´m not quite sure. Then I adjust the blacks and whites so that they kiss the 100 and 0 borders.

3. Now I would like to try out some of the free LUT´s that I´ve found, but as you can see it looks horrible, and does not look like it should like the examples on the LUT sites. I afterwards try to adjust saturation, contrast and alike but none of it helps:

It´s nok like in the promotial video where you drop a LUT on any footage, and BAM it looks amazing. My end goal would be a look that is warm, lush and colorful.

So my questions are:
Arent this example footage ready for LUTs?
Are my settings correct?
Am I generally doing anything wrong in my approach?
Are the promotial videos just ******** and requires deep experience with color correcting and grading, and therefore I would be better off with just shooting in auto settings?

Thanks alot for your thoughts

 

[Samuraiz]

Check this out.

There are also several other Tutorials from Casey that may prove helpful. For me, I have never achieved acceptable results using D-Log. especially @ -3,-3,-3.