Mark Foster wrote:transcode your footage to prores... a xeon has no quicksync for working with H264/H265 footage and so on: forget LUTs > learn grading ; -)
As much as I'm not a guy who generally uses LUTs, there are times when a LUT is the fastest way to get there. As one example, I just dealt with some Sony SLog3 material, and I defy you to grade it by hand without a LUT or a Transform -- it's a really screwy format.
In general, I do agree that with something like a DSLR, you can futz with it and get a normal picture out of it with some manual work. And I also totally agree that H.264 is rough to deal with in post.