I’m pretty sure I’ve accomplished what I’m after previously in darktable, but I just can’t figure out how to do it again…
I have created a second exposure module and placed it before the global exposure one. I’ve named it “dodging”. I’ve set it to +0.128 and I now want to slowly develop a dodge the way that dodging works in Lightroom. That is, I drag a brush stroke in a location and it gets a +0.128 increase in exposure. When I drag a second brush stroke in the same location I want the area to have an +0.256 increase in exposure. I’ve tried all modes in the mask manager, but none does what I want to. Something tells me I’m approaching the problem in a different way than I did when it worked for me…
I swear I’ve looked at seven YouTube clips of folks dodging and burning in darktable. But, they all drag on stroke in a location, but don’t incrementally add to the mask in the same place to successively make parts of the image lighter or darker. Very frustrating to watch.
Also, bonus for solving this: when I’ve dragged a brush stroke darktable jumps from the “brush tool“ to the “show and edit mask elements” which means I have to go an click the brush tool again between each stroke. I remember having solved this before too. I should take notes!
Oh wait… Writing makes me remember! It seems I set the exposure insanely high for the dodge instance of the exposure module and then set the opacity for the brush strokes very low.
Two questions remain:
And… I want each brush stroke I add to default to a an opacity value that’s less than 100%. I can’t go to the mask manager and change the opacity manually for each brush stroke I add when I make 50 strokes or so.
Set the default opacity for a shape by Ctrl+scrolling before placing the shape (this will set the opacity for all future placed shapes). Place multiple shapes by Ctrl+clicking on the shape creation button (right click to go back to editing mode).
With the brush shape, the default mode is “sum” so your strokes should be additive by default.
I am not addressing your original question, but I find the paths tool can be often quicker to use for dodging and burning than the paint brush. All the tips applied to using the brush here also apply to the paths drawing option.
I also like the way the feather size can be adjusted for the individual nodes. If you are already experienced with this masking option please ignore the noise I have added to your thread, but once I discovered the paths drawing option I have all but abandoned the paint brush.
There were some presets that someone shared a long time ago that also used some parametric masking… I will dig them up when I am at home in case anybody on this topic wants to make use of them…
Edit:
The presets are + 0.3 0.7 1.0 EV for dodge and the negative for burn and with this mask setting…
I believe there is also a point related to processing efficiency. Using the brush might create a lot more positions points (nodes) compared to drawn masks. Adding several brush strokes even more so – the example in the link provided by Donatzsky has about 130 shapes. So extensive use of the brush may have the potential for slowing down the processing, if I’ve understood things right.
it is a touch more polite than the usual English expression on which it is based. Which is meant to be complimentary.
I’m English. I had Northern-English family. The sense of humour is an acquired taste I guess. Personally, I’d say that is worth the effort. Mileage varies
And I do like that video. Have not made much use of the technique yet but I’m sure I will.
Thanks! That’s exactly the one I picked up the technique from the last time. Of course it did’t mention dodge & burn. That’s why I didn’t find it! Perhaps @Andy_Astbury1 should add it to video meta data so that people like me find it.
Just scroll up I have edited the post yesterday or the day before…there were 6 … basically using 3 selected ev plus and minus with the mask setting shown in my screen shot…nothing too amazing but the mask settings might help blend the brush strokes…
Now I remember that I clicked on the video to find out what he meant by “relighting.”
I’m not disputing the word, Andy’s experience of photography and processing is huge compared to mine, but I think most of us lesser mortals know it as dodging and burning. Even if from editing software rather than the actual film-printing darkroom.
