Applying WB to jpg/tiff in darktable and RawTherapee

[sankos]

@Carmelo_DrRaw

Since in most cases it is not possible to know, and therefore “undo”, the exact processing that produced the jpeg or tiff file, the best approximation is probably to convert the RGB data to a reference linear colorspace before applying some linear multipliers to the RGB channels to alter the WB.

Yes, neutralizing the non-raw file with the WB module is probably not practical from the image quality point of view (it’s better to do so when capturing the image for SOOC jpeg or in raw), so that leaves us with the usage for artistic effect, which can be done by several other colour manipulation tools which take place further down the line.

When it comes to raw files and WB, the one thing I miss in darktable is being able to apply WB corrections locally (with a drawn/parametric mask), when there are various sources of light in the frame.