Coming from the videography background, I use LUTs to assess editing of my images. For example, I use a false color LUT to make sure that my images are adequately exposed. This way, regardless of my monitor/room brightness, I can get more consistent results. The below is an example of applying my false color LUT:
The approach works pretty well for the “Exposure” and “DXO Smart Lighting” controls, but the problem is that when I adjust “Tone Curve”, it will affect the brightness of the LUT output rather than the underlying image. In other words, it seems like LUT is applied before Tone Curve takes effect. Here is the same image after I lifted the black using Tone Curve. You can see that it has increased the brightness of the output after the LUT application.
It would be nice if the “LUT Grading” had a checkbox “Apply at the end”, which allows the LUT to be applied at the end as the very last step after all other DXO adjustments have taken place. This will ensure that my monitoring LUTs are applied on the final image, and it will allow me to use other LUTs for monitoring color hues for skin tones, etc.
Thanks for considering!