Lately my workflow starts with RawTherapee auto-match tone curves. I only use one picture control setting in my camera (Nikon Z50; I think this is called film simulations or filters in other brands?). I use the standard profile with the contrast lowered one step.
Will the tone curve produced by auto-matched tone curve always be the same for the same camera picture control?
I ask because on nearly all of my photos I follow up AMTC by adjusting the tone curve manually to bring the highlights down. If the AMTC is going to be (mostly) constant given the settings on my camera, I could add this modified curve to my default profile and save myself two steps.
I suppose I could also change the picture controls on the camera and use that as the basis to create my own RawTherapee curves to match Nikonās Vivid, Standard, Portrait etc., if these settings are each associated with a fixed curve?
Iāve done that, and they donāt seem to work how I expected. If I apply auto-matched tone curve as the first step in the workflow, the image looks very close to the camera jpg. If I select Nikon Z50 Camera Standard as my input profile, (again, before I do anything else) the image looks different, but not really any closer to the camera jpg than the unedited RAW.
If it should, then perhaps Iāve got the wrong dcp files. I think I got them from a link from Andy Astbury? Iām not sure at this point, it was a couple years back and I gave up on them when the results werenāt very pleasing.
You get them usually by installing the Adobe DNG converter software. Then if using them you would likely turn off the tone curve and use the tone curve in the DCP file which can be active or not when you load the profile so you have to check. The same for the look tableā¦the base table will be activeā¦
As for the tone curves auto match or otherwise the resulting look can vary widely depending on which curve model you decide to useā¦film vs standard vs luminanceā¦
So there are for sure a variety of starting points you could end up with before even starting to edit the image
Hi Tyler, I am a DT user not a RT user, but I suspect a tone curve would be unable to perfectly match the cameras picture controls. My reasoning is that this picture controls/styles would also include changes to how colors are managed including but not limited to saturation and contrast. A landscape would āoptimiseā blues and greens, a portrait style would āoptimiseā skin tones. In DT I have created picture styles to closely match my cameras JPG as a starting point in my edits. I suspect you could do something similar with RT. I suspect it would include a suitable tone curve as well as adjustments to saturation of various color zones of the image. Good luck with your editing.
Not always. In a perfect world, the curves will be the same, assuming the camera applies the same processing to every image. The curve is created by looking at the embedded thumbnail. For various reasons, it is an imperfect process and can result in slightly different curves from image to image.
If you are always using the same camera image settings, why not hard-code a good auto-matched tone curve into your default processing profile?
If I have understood correctly, the auto match tome curve analyses the jpg thumbnail and works out a tone curve but doesnāt match the colours or saturation. This curve is different for each image, and occasionally it goes horribly wrong. If you use this in combination with the dcp files (but donāt use the dcp embedded tone curve) you can select the dcp file to better match the colours for that picture control.
Aha! That changes everything. Turning on the DCP tone curve and look table and I get just what Iāve been looking for. Auto-matched tone curve was close, but this is even better.
