Evaluating Large Language Models: A Technical Guide

Large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4, Claude, and LLaMA have exploded in popularity. Thanks to their ability to generate impressively human-like text, these AI systems are now being used for everything from content creation to customer service chatbots. But how do we know if these models…

Navigating the Misinformation Era: The Case for Data-Centric Generative AI

In the digital era, misinformation has emerged as a formidable challenge, especially in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). As generative AI models become increasingly integral to content creation and decision-making, they often rely on open-source databases like Wikipedia for foundational knowledge. However, the open nature…

Top 10 Color Grading LUT Packs for DaVinci Resolve in 2024

Color grading in filmmaking isn’t just a technical process; it’s an art form that sets the visual tone of a film. It’s where colors come alive, emotions are heightened, and stories get their visual flavor. Key to this process are LUTs, or Look-Up Tables. These powerful resources act like color grading magic wands, transforming raw footage into visually stunning narratives.

For users of DaVinci Resolve, known for its robust color correction and grading capabilities, LUTs are particularly valuable. They help in achieving a consistent look, fixing color imbalances, or even emulating the color style of popular movies.

Whether crafting a moody indie film, a bright commercial, or a compelling documentary, finding the perfect LUT pack is critical. In this collection, we share a variety of LUT packs specifically created for DaVinci Resolve. Each LUT pack comes with unique color signatures and moods, and are suited for various types of video projects.

What are LUTs?

LUTs, or Look-Up Tables, are essential tools in color grading, serving as a bridge between the current colors in your video and the desired outcome. They’re like a preset color formula that applies specific adjustments to achieve a particular look. In DaVinci Resolve, they play a critical role in color correction and grading, allowing for consistent and quick color transformations across various scenes and projects.

Historically, LUTs have been pivotal in the evolution of color grading. They transitioned from technical tools in film labs to digital aids in modern color grading software. Their use in DaVinci Resolve reflects a blend of technical innovation and creative expression, providing filmmakers with precision and artistic freedom in their color grading process.

The Best DaVinci Resolve LUT Packs for Video Creators

1. Professional Film LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (12 LUTS)

This DaVinci Resolve LUT pack has been designed to add cinematic color effects to your videos, emulating the look and feel of professional movie productions. The pack’s focus on film-style color grading makes it an excellent choice for those looking to enhance the storytelling impact of their visual content with a professional, cinematic touch.

Top 10 Color Grading LUT Packs for DaVinci Resolve in 2024

2. Street LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (12 LUTs)

This LUT pack has been designed to give your videos a distinct street and city color effect, making it ideal for filmmakers and video editors who want to capture the essence and mood of urban environments in their projects. Whether you’re working on a documentary, music video, or any project with a city backdrop, these DaVinci Resolve LUTs can add an authentic urban feel to your footage.

Street LUTs for DaVinci Resolve Look-Up Tables

3. Old School DaVinci Resolve LUTs (12 LUTs)

This pack consists of 12 LUTs, each designed to bring a retro or vintage feel to your video projects. These LUTs are perfect for filmmakers that are looking looking to add a nostalgic, classic feel to their footage. Whether you’re working on a project that needs a bygone-era aesthetic or just love the timeless look of retro visuals, these DaVinci Resolve LUTs provide a simple way to achieve that old-school charm.

Old School DaVinci Resolve LUTs Look-Up Tables

4. Thermograph LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (20 LUTs)

This DaVinci Resolve LUT pack contains 20 unique LUTs with highly creative thermograph color effects. They are ideal for creators looking to add a distinctive, heat-vision style color palette to their footage, making it perfect for projects that require an innovative visual approach. Whether you’re working on artistic videos, music clips, or experimental films, these LUTs provide a fresh and intriguing visual twist.

Thermograph LUTs for DaVinci Resolve Look-Up Tables

5. Cinematic Tone LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (15 LUTs)

This LUT pack has been designed for filmmakers who want to infuse their projects with epic movie-style color effects. This pack includes fifteen cinematic LUTs, offering a wide range of options for enhancing the visuals of various film and video projects. These LUTs are well-suited for creating deep, impactful, and professional-looking color grades, making them a valuable addition to any editor’s toolkit in DaVinci Resolve.

Cinematic Tone LUTs for DaVinci Resolve Look-Up Tables

6. Aesthetic Dark DaVinci Resolve LUTs (12 LUTs)

This pack consists of 12 LUTs tailored for creating dark and moody color effects, making it perfect for filmmakers looking to give their footage a deep, emotionally resonant look. Whether you’re working on a suspenseful thriller, a dramatic short film, or any content that benefits from a darker aesthetic, this pack offers the color grading tools to achieve that vision.

Aesthetic Dark DaVinci Resolve LUTs Look-Up Tables

7. Moody Travel DaVinci Resolve LUTs (30 LUTs)

This pack is a collection of 30 LUTs specifically created for travel videos that require a gloomy and dark color grading style. It is ideal for travel filmmakers, vloggers, and videographers who want to convey a deeper, more emotional tone in their footage. The varied LUTs in this pack are designed to enhance the storytelling aspect of travel videos by adding a unique and dramatic visual flair.

Moody Travel DaVinci Resolve LUTs Look-Up Tables

8. Social Media LUTs for DaVinci Resolve (74 LUTs)

These social media LUTs are perfect for vloggers, small businesses, marketers, and filmmakers looking to enhance their videos with Instagram-style color grading. Choose from various color grades to create captivating visuals that will make your social media content pop. Transform your footage and stand out on social media with these versatile LUTs.

Social Media LUTs for DaVinci Resolve Look-Up Tables

9. Fashion Color LUTs Pack for DaVinci Resolve (16 LUTs)

This set of 16 meticulously crafted color grading presets has been tailored for fashion, modeling, and anyone aiming for stylish and elegant video content. They’re perfect for both fashion photographers and videographers looking to give their video projects a sophisticated and fashion-forward appearance.

Fashion LUTs Pack for DaVinci Resolve Look-Up Tables

10. Stunning Landscape DaVinci Resolve LUTs (10 LUTs)

This collection of DaVinci Resolve color grading presets have been designed to enhance your landscape footage. It’s ideal for video content creators that are looking to bring out the natural beauty of outdoor settings. These LUTs provide precise color correction to make your landscapes truly come alive.

Stunning Landscape DaVinci Resolve LUTs Look-Up Tables

How to Use LUTs in DaVinci Resolve?

  • How to Import & Apply LUTs in DaVinci Resolve:
    Start by importing your LUT collection into DaVinci Resolve. In the Color workspace, find your clip in the timeline. Right-click on the node and select LUT to apply your chosen LUT. You can also drag LUTs onto the node for a quicker workflow.
  • How to Fine-Tune Intensity & Blending:
    Once applied, adjust the LUT’s intensity for a balanced look. This can be done in the Key panel, where you can slide to reduce the LUT’s impact, achieving a more subtle effect. Experiment with blending modes in the Composite panel to see how the LUT interacts with your footage’s colors and contrast.
  • Tips for Effective LUT Use:
    Always apply LUTs on properly balanced footage for the best results. Consider using LUTs after primary color correction. Use LUTs to set a mood, but tweak them to fit each scene’s lighting and color. Remember, LUTs should enhance, not dominate your footage.
  • Common Pitfalls:
    Avoid applying LUTs to uncorrected footage. Each clip’s exposure and white balance can affect how the LUT behaves. Also, don’t rely solely on LUTs for your final look – they’re tools, not complete solutions. Be cautious of over-saturating or creating unnatural skin tones.

Remember, LUTs in DaVinci Resolve are about enhancing your creative vision while maintaining the natural quality of your footage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  • What is DaVinci Resolve?

    DaVinci Resolve is a popular video editing software with exceptional color grading and correction features. It’s a versatile tool used by filmmakers and video editors, offering a range of capabilities, including audio post-production and visual effects.

  • Why Use LUT Packs in DaVinci Resolve?

    They speed up the color grading process, provide consistency in your projects, and help you achieve a professional look quickly.

  • Are LUT Packs Suitable for Beginners?

    Yes, they are user-friendly and a great starting point for beginners to understand color grading dynamics.

  • Can LUT Packs be Adjusted?

    Absolutely, you can tweak intensity, color balance, and other settings to fit your specific video needs.

  • Do I Need Specific LUT Packs for Different Projects?

    While some LUT Packs are versatile, others are tailored for specific themes or moods. Choosing the right one depends on your project’s style.

  • Can I Create My Own LUTs in DaVinci Resolve?

    Yes, DaVinci Resolve allows you to create and save your custom LUTs.

Color Grading in DaVinci Resolve

When used properly, LUTs can bring versatility and depth to your video editing, making them invaluable resources for filmmakers. As you dive deeper into the DaVinci Resolve, remember to explore and experiment with different LUTs and find the packs that work best for you and your project.

Each of these shared packs offers a unique spectrum of colors and moods, unlocking endless creative possibilities. As color grading continues to evolve, staying updated with the latest LUTs ensures your work remains fresh and engaging in this fast moving field.

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5 ways to effectively communicate cyber security value to the board – CyberTalk

5 ways to effectively communicate cyber security value to the board – CyberTalk

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Historically, communicating the value of cyber security to the board has always been a challenge. Cyber security staff and solutions are typically out-of-sight and out-of-mind, until something goes terribly pear-shaped.

Although there isn’t a single, uniform way to convey cyber security’s value to the board, there are a variety of highly effective strategies that can provide valuable guidance and that can neatly set leaders up for success.

Cyber security leaders are invited to leverage the strategies below in order to ensure that cyber security is seen as a critical business support mechanism that must be continually evolved and adapted to align with today’s digital realities.

5 ways to communicate cyber security value to the board

1. Build a coherent cyber risk narrative. It’s safe to say that most CISOs are aware of the need for effective communication, but many struggle to craft narratives that will build awareness and help obtain buy-in for new projects or initiatives.

As a CISO, start by addressing unacceptable outcomes. Describe how failure to address a certain problem will result in negatives for the business. Then, shift into how to build pathways that help everyone avoid the manifestation of those outcomes.

A narrative-development strategy recommended by CISO and author Andy Ellis is to consider ‘what is the least amount of information that stakeholders require in order to understand the issue, validate my solution and take action?’

A coherent cyber risk narrative should also remain continuous throughout the conversation. In the event that a stakeholder inquires off-handedly about a technical detail, the discussion should not derail.

2. Develop board-ready reporting. Create visually engaging reports that are easy to comprehend.

Line charts, bar graphs and pie charts, for example, can be employed to emphasize changes in frequency of threat events, the success of risk mitigation strategies, or the distribution of cyber security investments.

And charts illustrating the financial implications of a cyber security incident can convey the potential impact of an event more effectively than a verbal description alone.

Board-ready reports can assist with data retention, and help ensure that the board’s time, which is a limited resource in and of itself, is used effectively.

(That said, it’s also important to get the balance right and to avoid overwhelming the audience with too many visuals.)

3. Quantify risk in financial terms. Cyber attacks pose a direct threat to an organization’s financial health, a topic that C-level executives are deeply concerned with.

To effectively quantify cyber security risk in financial terms, adopt a quantitative risk assessment methodology. This involves assigning monetary value to potential risks based on elements such as asset value, threat frequency, and control effectiveness.

In other words, C-levels often see the world in terms of dollar signs; profit and loss. Frame conversations around these concepts.

Leverage metrics such as Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE), which helps to provide a numerical representation of the financial impact associated with specific threats.

Further, utilize cost-benefit analyses in determining how to allocate resources in order to mitigate identified risks.

Expressing cyber security risks in financial terms enables more informed decision-making and improved resource allocation – ultimately strengthening the organization’s overall cyber resilience.

4. Emphasize business alignment. To demonstrate the value of cyber security, emphasize how cyber security activities align with broader business goals.

For a CISO, the connection between cyber security and business enablement is clear, but this isn’t always the case for executives or board members. A security threat is a business threat.

Show how the capabilities of the cyber security staff can enable C-levels and board members to better achieve their objectives, such as improved business resilience and business continuity in the event of an incident.

Show how security initiatives result in valuable business outcomes.

5. Showcase return on investment (ROI). To truly convey the value of cyber security to the board, CISOs must ensure that they can prove a return on investment for cyber security initiatives.

For example, CISOs may want to demonstrate how specific prevention and response systems result in reductions in incident response times over the course of a fiscal year.

In turn, this saves the organization money, as otherwise, threats could linger in systems for longer durations of time (APTs), resulting in more significant cyber security disruptions.

By presenting tangible ROIs, CISOs not only validate the significance of cyber security expenditures, but also provide a basis for strategic decision-making when it comes to future investments.

Related resources

AgeLab’s Bryan Reimer named to US Department of Transportation innovation committee

AgeLab’s Bryan Reimer named to US Department of Transportation innovation committee

Bryan Reimer, research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics’ (MIT CTL) AgeLab, has been appointed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) to the Transforming Transportation Advisory Committee (TTAC). The committee advises the DoT and the secretary of transportation about plans and approaches for transportation innovation.

Reimer, who has been at MIT since 2003, joins a team of 27 experts on the committee chosen to provide diverse perspectives across sectors, geographies, and areas of expertise. Their advice will help ensure that transportation’s future is safe, efficient, sustainable, equitable, and transformative.

A mobility futurist and expert in the human element of assisted and automated vehicle safety, Reimer collaborates with industries worldwide on behavioral, technological, and public policy challenges associated with driver attention, driver assistance systems, automated driving, vulnerable road users, and electric vehicles. These varied interests are reflected in Reimer’s wide-ranging research projects.

He is the founder and co-director of AgeLab’s Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) Consortium and Advanced Human Factors Evaluator for Attentional Demand (AHEAD) consortium. AVT launched in 2015 and is a global academic-industry collaboration on developing a data-driven understanding of how drivers respond to commercially available vehicle technologies. The consortium focuses especially on how systems perform and the impacts of technology on driving behavior and consumer attitudes. AHEAD is an academic-industry partnership launched in 2013 that is working to develop a framework for driver attention support and safeguards that can be operationalized.

In 2018, Reimer delivered a TEDx talk entitled “There’s more to safety of driverless cars than AI.” The talk focused on transparency in the deployment and operation of driverless cars and on the “trusted information consumers need” before these automated vehicles become the future of mobility. He believes the public and private sectors must work together to ensure consumers’ safety on public roads.

“Working at the intersection of technology, driver behavior, and public policy for over 20 years, I have long recognized that neither the public or private sectors can solve these complex issues independently,” says Reimer. “A safer, greener, convenient, comfortable, and more economical mobility system will require a deeper collaboration between the public and private sectors. Industries also need appropriate government support and oversight to help them develop, produce, and deploy new technologies that optimize the impact on society. I hope that my work with the committee can highlight needs in this area.”

In a statement, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg remarked on the committee’s mission. “We are living in a time filled with unprecedented opportunity and unprecedented challenges in transportation,” he said. “The deep expertise and diverse perspectives of this impressive group will provide advice to ensure the future of transportation is safe, efficient, sustainable, equitable, and transformative.”

The TTAC is tasked with exploring and considering issues related to:

  • pathways to safe, secure, equitable, environmentally friendly, and accessible deployments of emerging technologies;
  • integrated approaches to promote greater cross-modal integration of emerging technologies, particularly applications to deploy automation;
  • policies that encourage automation to grow and support a safe and productive U.S. workforce, as well as foster economic competitiveness and job quality;
  • approaches and frameworks that encourage the secure exchange and sharing of transformative transportation data, including technologies and infrastructure, across the public and private sectors that can guide core policy decisions across DOT’s strategic goals;
  • ways the DOT can identify and elevate cybersecurity solutions and protect privacy across transportation systems and infrastructure; and
  • other emerging issues, topics, and technologies.

The AgeLab has deep expertise in many of these areas with a multidisciplinary research program that includes home logistics and services and transportation and livable communities topics. It works with businesses, government, and nongovernmental organizations to improve the quality of life of older people and those who care for them. Personal mobility and the availability of delivery systems are critically important elements of this work.

MIT CTL, of which AgeLab is a part, also offers expertise in freight transportation. For example, MIT CTL’s FreightLab has conducted groundbreaking research with industry partners on issues such as truck drivers’ performance, truck transportation availability, and the impact of natural disasters on freight movement.

Transportation research is more critical than ever, given the advance of automation and innovations such as AI-based management systems. Also, there is increasing demand from consumers and governments to make the movement of goods and people more efficient and environmentally friendly.

TTAC members will serve two-year terms and may be reappointed. The committee’s first meeting was held on Jan. 18.

Middle-school students meet a beam of electrons, and excitement results

Want to get middle-school kids excited about science? Let them do their own experiments on MIT.nano’s state-of-the-art microscopes — with guidelines and adult supervision, of course. That was the brainchild of Carl Thrasher and Tao Cai, MIT graduate students who spearheaded the Electron Microscopy Elevating Representation and Growth in Education (EMERGE) program.

Held in November, EMERGE invited 18 eighth-grade students to the pilot event at MIT.nano, an interdisciplinary facility for nanoscale research, to get hands-on experience in microscopy and materials science.

The highlight of the two-hour workshop: Each student explored mystery samples of everyday materials using one of two scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), which scan material samples using a beam of electrons to form an image. Though highly sophisticated, the instruments generated readily understandable data — images of intricate structures in a butterfly wing or a strand of hair, for example.

Middle-school students meet a beam of electrons, and excitement results

A dragonfly leg, seen through a scanning electron microscope. The image was generated by Tyler Flynn, one of the MITES Saturdays middle school students, in a November pilot event called EMERGE (Electron Microscopy Elevating Representation and Growth in Education) at MIT.nano.

Image courtesy of the EMERGE program.


The students had an immediate, tangible sense of success, says Thrasher, from MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). He led the program along with Cai, also from DMSE, and Collette Gordon, a grad student in the Department of Chemistry.

“This experience helped build a sense of agency and autonomy around this area of science, nurturing budding self-confidence among the students,” Thrasher says. “We didn’t give the students instructions, just empowered them to solve problems. When you don’t tell them the solution, you get really surprised with what they come up with.”

Unlocking interest in the infinitesimal

The students were part of a multi-year science and engineering exploration program called MITES Saturdays, run by MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering, and Science, or MITES. A team of volunteers was on hand to help students follow the guidance set out by Thrasher, ensuring the careful handling of the SEMs — worth roughly $500,000 each.

MITES Saturdays program administrator Lynsey Ford was thrilled to observe the students’ autonomous exploration and enthusiasm.

“Our students got to meet real scientists who listened to them, cared about the questions they were asking, and welcomed them into a world of science,” Ford says. “A supportive learning environment can be just as powerful for science discovery as a half-million-dollar microscope.”

The pilot workshop was the first step for Thrasher and his team in their goal to build EMERGE into a program with broad impact, engaging middle-to-high school students from a variety of communities.

The partnership with MITES Saturdays is crucial for this endeavor, says Thrasher, providing a platform to reach a wider audience. “Seeing students from diverse backgrounds participating in EMERGE reinforces the profound difference science education can have.”

MITES Saturdays students are high-achieving Massachusetts seventh through 12th graders from Boston, MIT’s hometown of Cambridge, and nearby Lawrence.

“The majority of students who participate in our programs would be the first person in their family to go to college. A lot of them are from families balancing some sort of financial hardship, and from populations that are historically underrepresented in STEM,” Ford says.

Experienced SEM users set up the instruments and prepared test samples so students could take turns exploring specimens such as burrs, butterfly wings, computer chips, hair, and pollen by operating the microscope to adjust magnification, focus, and stage location.

Students left the EMERGE event with copies of the electron microscope images they generated. Thrasher hopes they will use these materials in follow-up projects, ideally integrating them into existing school curricula so students can share their experiences.

EMERGE co-director Cai says students were excited with their experimentation, both in being able to access such high-end equipment and in seeing what materials like Velcro look like under an SEM (spoiler alert: it’s spaghetti).

Middle-school students meet a beam of electrons, and excitement results

A Velcro material sample, magnified using a scanning electron microscope by Ishika Roy, a MITES student in the EMERGE program at MIT.nano, in November.

Image courtesy of the EMERGE program.


“We definitely saw a spark,” Cai says. “The subject matter was complex, but the students always wanted to know more.” And the after-program feedback was positive, with most saying the experience was fun and challenging. The volunteers noted how engaged the students were with the SEMs and subject matter. One volunteer overheard students say, “I felt like a real scientist!”

Inspiring tomorrow’s scientists

EMERGE is based on the Scanning Electron Microscopy Educators program, a long-running STEM outreach program started in 1991 by the Air Force Research Laboratory and adopted by Michigan State University. As an Air Force captain stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Thrasher participated in the program as a volunteer SEM expert.

“I thought it was an incredible opportunity for young students and wanted to bring it here to MIT,” he says.

The pilot was made possible thanks to support from the MITES Saturdays team and the Graduate Materials Council (GMC), the DMSE graduate student organization. Cai and DMSE grad student Jessica Dong, who are both GMC outreach chairs, helped fund, organize, and coordinate the event.

The MITES Saturdays students included reflections on their experience with the SEMs in their final presentations at the MITES Fall Symposium in November.

“My favorite part of the semester was using the SEM as it introduced me to microscopy at the level of electrons,” said one student.

“Our students had an incredible time with the EMERGE team. We’re excited about the possibility of future partnerships with MIT.nano and other departments at MIT, giving our scholars exposure to the breadth of opportunities as future scientists,” says Eboney Hearn, MITES executive director.

With the success of the pilot, the EMERGE team is looking to offer more programs to the MITES students in the spring. Anna Osherov is excited to give students more access to the cumulative staff knowledge and cutting-edge equipment at MIT.nano, which opened in 2018. Osherov is associate director for Characterization.nano, a shared experimental facility for advanced imaging and analysis.

“Our mission is to support mature researchers — and to help inspire the future PhDs and professors who will come to MIT to learn, research, and innovate,” Osherov says. “Designing and offering such programs, aimed at fostering natural curiosity and creativity of young minds, has a tremendous long-term benefit to our society. We can raise tomorrow’s generation in a better way.”

For her part, Ford is still coasting on the students’ excitement. “They come into the program so curious and hungry for knowledge. They remind me every day how amazing the world is.”