After having watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVoIx3eMxwA , an excellent video of @anon41087856, I decided to have another look at the challenging image shown here. I have tried to avoid shooting myself in the foot by adjusting the thresholds of the clipping indicator according to the video…… and to relax even if I notice minor clippings……
The image in the example looks exactly like a Smurf house but it’s an old house thatched with seaweed according to the local tradition on a remote Danish island.
Opening the image in darkroom using the standard scene referred settings results in this:
The image is generally ok but the leaves in the foreground are way too dark. Filmic has compressed the dynamic range in the highlights but has also darkened the shadows a lot. Darkening of the shadows is something I often observe when using filmic in the default setup. Filmic doesn’t seem to recover the shadows as it should according to the manual?
Pulling the black relative exposure slider all the way to the left, adjusting the contrast, latitude, exposure and fine tuning the white relative slider results in this:
This is a surprisingly good result, to me at least…….
There is no clipping (or only minimal clipping) in the image if I switch of filmic and the exposure settings of the scene-referred workflow. The dynamic range doesn’t need compression(!), so do I benefit from using filmic editing this photo?
Personally I would not use only Filmic for this.
I would use the Tone Equalizer or a masked Exposure to lift the shadows in the foreground to prevent a loss of contrast in the house
the leaves in the foreground are very dark in the raw, so you’d better recover the using tone equalizer. Filmic is more about tonemapping then about tweaking shadows&highlights as in lightroom
I thought so too. But I had problems lightening the foreground and at the same time getting a good contrast, good details and colors in the greens not using filmic…
I don’t understand this statement. i assume that you meant ‘switch off’ above. Turning filmic and the exposure off gives me a dark image, with shadow detail lost:
If you check your filmic settings, it seems you’ve set it to cover over 18 EV of dynamic range, which is certainly more than your display (and sRGB) can handle.
You are right. I meant “off”.
If you switch filmic off and adjust the exposure there is no (only minimal) clipping. See below. Therefore, the image doesn’t need compression. Do you benefit from using filmic in this situation? Or should you edit the image on basis of the rawfile using other dt tools?
that depends on what you’re doing in the pipe until filmic is applied. If you’re editing in scene referred mode you can increase exposure until your midtones are ok without bothering about the white areas - filmic brings them back, so you don’t need to care (i call this a benefit)
Of course you can do this using different tools (curves, masked exposure) - there is no such thing as right or wrong in an editing process.
On my display, the details in the shadows are gone. The over/underexposure indicator showing hardly any or absolutely no clipping does not mean that details are not gone (e.g. if you crush your shadows into a uniform dark grey, there will be no discernible detail, but the indicator will still not show clipping).
Aurélien often says that we should edit the images, not the histograms. If this is the look you’re after, fine. Otherwise, trust your eyes (and check what the different modes of the clipping indicator mean).
@KristijanZic: Is this a screenshot, export or something else?
I’m asking 'cause there are horizontal lines (very slowly bend) showing up. Especially visible in the greens on the left side and the top right. Almost looks like you took a picture from an old CRT monitor and the frequency flicker is showing up
It’s impressive that Lightroom is able to tweak the image so much. Having said that I will also say that the scene in real life looked much more like my second image (after having adjusted the original filmic settings).
If that’s the look you are after, here is with DT 3.4. I know it’s not exactly the same, and not 15 seconds either, but I think close enough for quick and dirty edit.
Or this one: dt 4.0 (exposure +2,65 with mask)
Like the LR example you can see massive banding in the shadows. The camera is clearly out of its specs here. I really prefer one of the darker examples.
I think the topic was meant as “look, you CAN get some visible shadow detail back with just filmic”.
Yes, I often advise to use another tool to get the shadows to your liking after filmic, but if you get a picture without other tools you like : go for it :).
I personally always try to use scene referree , so that means exposure,color calibration and filmic as a base. But I understand if people have another way.
Personally I’m in between the op image and the one with a bit of tone equalizer. The last few attempts have a ton of overdone color (green) for me, and show haloing and other local contrast effects.
The reason I like filmic is the more natural look, so it seems.
and to relax even if I notice minor clippings……
