In Nate's examples all the LUTs are discarding the highlights (outside the car window). A proper grade would be able to keep the highlights while giving a similar tonal range to the rest of the image.

Alister,

Would I be interpreting you correctly if by grading before the LUT, you mean just laying the filters in order so that the LUT is last , but that you will be applying changes while viewing with the LUT in place and working on the image.
I don't imagine you could do any grading on the picture without the LUT in place.

Was that an answer to the question about how to deal with exposure issues? i.e. grade with the 3 way above the LUT in the heirarchy of filters?

I'll try to post a few tests after I get more done with these.

In Nate's examples all the LUTs are discarding the highlights (outside the car window). A proper grade would be able to keep the highlights while giving a similar tonal range to the rest of the image.

The car BG highlights I'd consider a throwaway anyway though...they compete with her face.

In the casino, the graded still was adjusted to bring back the guy's white shirt after the LUT clipped it by default. In my Resolve session, the LUT is the last step in processing, just like you advise.

A LUT is not meant to replace grading. The primary purpose of a LUT is to allow you to view your 12+ stop footage on a conventional 6 stop monitor without it looking like crud.

Of course. As somebody who colors an awful lot, I'd say that it gives the colorist an important starting point.

I posted some time back that it's possible to get a good image without a LUT and just apply your own contrast or curves + saturation to get started, and it's true, but I've now realized that a good LUT can do things that are ton of work if you just have to do them on your own for each shot. There's a very refined s-curve going on in the Alexa LUT that I'd be hard-pressed to create on my own.