Technical LUT
Also known as: conversion LUT, transform LUT
A lookup table that converts footage from one colour space to another, correct by definition rather than a matter of taste.
Updated
What it means
A technical table does arithmetic. It takes a known input, usually a Log profile, and produces a known output, usually a standard display space. The answer is either right or wrong, with nothing in between.
Camera manufacturers publish them for exactly this. A table for a given profile to Rec. 709 is the official conversion rather than somebody's interpretation of what the curve meant.
It is the opposite half of the pair that includes a Creative LUT. One normalises; the other decorates, and they belong in that order. Reversing them is the usual cause of a washed-out clip.
How it works in practice
It goes first in the chain. Converting before any adjustment means every later control behaves the way a colourist would expect it to, and nothing recovers cleanly from the wrong order.
Colour management replaces it where available. Setting input and output spaces once handles every clip on the timeline, which is what makes a managed workflow preferable to a table applied per shot by hand.
Tone mapping is the part that needs care. Converting a wide range into a narrow one has to decide what happens to the highlights, and that is where one table differs from another.
What to watch out for
Applying one twice is the classic error. A clip converted by the camera and again in the application ends up over-contrasted, and the cause is invisible in a thumbnail. Scopes catch it immediately.
The wrong table for the profile produces a plausible wrong answer. A table for one manufacturer's curve applied to another's leaves a subtle Color cast that nothing later removes cleanly.
It is not a grade. Footage that has only been converted is correct and uninteresting, and mistaking the conversion for a finish is why some edits look flat and unfinished to anybody watching.
How RawClip handles it
Conversion from flat camera profiles happens before anything else while the sequence is assembled, which is what lets clips from different bodies be compared against each other at all. The look applied afterwards is deliberately restrained rather than stylised.