@bastibe WIth the new basic adjustments widget you will be able to build a dashboard by adding features from most modules so this should speed things up.
@garibaldi One approach is this since you can save the state of a module ie active or not and the parameters even in the inactive state you can do an edit with all the modules you would normally apply. Now pick any common settings or your starting points and now disable all or at least the extra ones that you often but not always apply and then save this as a style. Now if you apply this style you can add a series of modules with your desired defaults (initially active or not) and also as needed selectively add modules with your desired defaults by simply enabling the remaining ones you need. So maybe you don’t always use local contrast but when you do just enable it with your default settings… The only thing in this approach might be that if you are not careful in a certain sequence of actions and compress your history stack you might reset or remove one of those modules those…
Or for sure you can define autopresets for all your common modules so that they are applied by default when ever you apply or reset the module…This is a good thing to do say with filmic as it has many options. If you setup an autopreset then simply resetting the module will set them all as you need rather than the system default and then readjusting each time…Doing this for your commonly used modules will save a lot of time…
Fairly simple really:
First, you have a Fuji machine so it is necessary to boost the EV +1.43 in the exposure module. (check the RAW EXIF data for confirmation). Also turn on the ‘offset compensation’. Now you should not have to fiddle with the exposure at all. Then I preset nominally needed (for me) small adjustments to local-contrast, contrast-equalizer and color-balance; they also can be preset.
With that done I generally only then need to adjust filmic-rgb and then color-calibration. In the case of your image I did not even do these last items.
If you are messing with your exposure in dt then you need to apply the correct JPG-to-RAW correction … I have not needed to touch my basic exposure settings in the past 1,000 images.
Special images always need ‘special touches’ with masking and gilding-the-lilly … that is normal but basic development of incoming data should be easy and straightforward.
Use the immense power of dt to extract the very best out of the few 5-star images in your collection.
I was already deeply intrigued by a character who just sets out to write his own raw developer, but now you reveal even more fascinating stories. Is there a place where you chronicle your life? Your story sounds like an interesting one.
Perhaps I should have selected a different image… In general, I find I am rarely limited by the dynamic range of my camera, but often want to include more of it than customary into my images. So my issue is not with capturing, but with rendering.
That does sound great! I’ll be looking forward to trying that. Thank you for mentioning it.
It really depends on how you’re shooting. My way often leaves me with under- or overexposed images, because I often value capture speed over precision, so as to not hold up my family, or to spend more time playing with my kids than holding a camera. To put it another way, I prefer to push my exposure in post (while I have time), over getting it right in the field (where I don’t).
But I do know my ways are idiosyncratic so thank you for your comment regardless.
That said, I’m not the best ETTR-er. I use my camera’s highlight-weighted metering so I don’t have to distract myself from composing and focusing, which gives up some of the top end in a lot of cases, falling onto the crutch of my camera’s really nice low light performance. I do keep my ISO at base by default, and only switch out of that if I specifically need a decent shutter speed for avoiding motion blur.
With respect to ‘interesting’, at the moment my son is having an interesting time; I’m just working part time in my old day job, in the basement. I guess we gave him some of the inclination; we spent a couple of years living on an island in the Pacific when he was a pre-teenager, so doing weird things for employment is some part of his thinking… He bought a nice camera to take down there, and I tried in the time we had to set him up with rawproc, RawTherapee, darktable, and ART so he had options. Now that he’s there with limited internet, I can’t show him things with rawproc that I know would make his post-processing either. He’s still in the “SOOC JPEG” phase; when he decides to start shooting raw, I’m going to have to handle the “Why are my pictures so dark?” angst over a discord chat…
Congratulations @bastibe on your second child! I can certainly relate to the time pressures and why you have had to change your usual processing habits. I quite enjoy post-processing, but it can be a huge time sink, and time is probably my most precious resource at the moment (job + 2 kids +…).
Having very recently moved over to the Fuji ecosystem, I now have Capture One Express given to me for free. I may try it out sometime, but I’m already expecting it to be too limited for my needs. I’ve also invested in the DAM features of darktable, so am unlikely to give it up. However, my first impression of the Fuji film simulations is that they are incredible, so I’m already wondering if I’ll sometimes want to use software with the official film simulations built in. But after shooting exclusively raw for the last 15 years, I’m realizing that using JPEGs out of camera is a viable option once more with Fuji, so I may just continue to shoot Raw + JPG and only process the raws for the photos I want to display and print. That will be the real time saver for me.
This I can certainly relate to. It was my experience with Lightroom too. The results may not be the best, but acceptable results could be achieved very quickly, often in a matter of seconds.
By the way, have you tried X Raw or Silkypix - the other Fuji software? Would be interested to hear your thoughts on those.
I have indeed! There’s a whole article about all the raw developers I could find up on my blog, which includes Silkypix. I am quite fond of Silkypix, actually. It is quirky, and its translation is a bit idiosyncratic, but results are excellent. But above all, its documentation is much more comprehensive and technical than any other commercial raw developer I know of. But it is also a bit slow, and being quite similar to darktable in spirit, I stick with darktable, generally. But I do own a license, and its Fuji film simulations are very good.
Fuji’s own X-Raw developer is not a raw developer per se, but instead connects to your actual camera via USB, and offloads all image processing to the actual firmware in your camera. Which is crazy cool from a technical standpoint, and obviously gives you the “true” film simulations of your camera like nothing else can. But on the flip side it is only as flexible as your camera’s post processing engine, which really does not compare to a desktop application at all.
Yes, this is what I was scratching my head about. What is the benefit of using your camera’s processing rather than a desktop computer’s? I would have thought the latter is infinitely more powerful and capable, so I’m wondering what the purpose of X Raw is.
Thanks! So for the user, there’s not really much benefit other than being able to access processing algos that would otherwise be unavailable (or not as good). But in theory, if they did port the algo to desktop software, there wouldn’t be any advantage.
I guess speed and access to those custom things they have in their jpeg engine. The film simulations are supposedly not just LUTs (idk). Then on newer cameras there are two color-chrome algos, clarity and skin smoothing. And the quality of those is at least not terrible for a camera-jpeg engine.
The simple use of aperture-priority will ensure that your camera correctly establishes the 18% pivot in 99% of all cases. It is simple point-and-shoot without holding up the family affair.
The table at the end of this article might be of some interest…it might be nice to determine the raw exp bias that Fuji uses for each camera as it could help possibly with a more accurate starting point esp say with filmic. Looks like Fuji underexposes which is now know but this changes with iso and so some presets could be made to perhaps guide the starting point for filmic…
@priort and @davidvj, thanks for the clarification. I was familiar with how to use auto-presets and it sounds like this is very similar, though with the option to apply a module with adjusted settings but disabled which is a neat trick.
I’ve also been playing with configuring shortcuts for adjusting common sliders using the dynamic shortcut for each slider. This way I can just hold down the corresponding shortcut key and scroll which achieves a similar effect. Do you know if there’s a way to adjust how sensitive scrolling is? Currently, it is very fine-grained so requires a lot of scrolling to make a relatively small adjustment (e.g. +1EV on the exposure module)
For what it’s worth, in line with what @davidvj wrote, I tend to live in aperture-priority mode (and in daylight such as that of your shot at lowest ISO) and adjust exposure with the exposure compensation setting, which, at least on my Pentax SLR and I assume on most other cameras, is a quick and easy operation.
I mainly use the exposure-compensation setting on my camera so as to avoid ‘flooding’ the sensor with bright elements. I rely on my in camera histograms and ‘blinkies’ to alert me to potential sensor overload and then adjust accordingly.
For those using filmic-rgb, setting the exposure this way is blindingly simple and saves so much time in the processing.
I see people suggesting a reset/adjustment of black-point and white point during processing and that simply shifts, without control, the camera’s established 18% exposed pivot point of the data.
He bought a nice camera to take down there, and I tried in the time we had to set him up with rawproc, RawTherapee, darktable, and ART so he had options. Now that he’s there with limited internet, I can’t show him things with rawproc that I know would make his post-processing either. He’s still in the “SOOC JPEG” phase; when he decides to start shooting raw, I’m going to have to handle the “Why are my pictures so dark?” angst over a discord chat… 