ART offers several tools for sharpness and details.
Capture Sharpening,
Local Contrast and
Texture Boost/Sharpening.
If I use all three carefully, I get very good results that still look pretty natural.
Question:
Does it make sense to apply all three at the same time? Or would it be better to use only two or even one of these tools?
Local Contrast and Texture Boost/Sharpening are very similar. Do they complement each other or would it be better to adjust only one of them very precisely?
What really counts is what you see: if YOU like the results when applying several sharpening methods, then keep doing so!
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That’s a good thing.
But are there tools that don’t get along? In dt tutorials you read that you shouldn’t use several “Tone Mappers” at the same time, for example, because this could lead to unpredictable problems.
Is Log Tone Mapping compatible with Simoid?
In short: Are there tools in ART which should not be used at the same time?
What really counts is what you see ! 
Hi,
I’m not sure what you mean exactly with “unpredictable”. In general, the preview in ART is supposed to reflect what you will get in output to a reasonable extent (meaning: you won’t get 100% accuracy sometimes, but in general the level of accuracy should be enough to avoid surprises). If you discover situations in which this is not the case, then I would say you have found a bug in the the tool (and then, I’m interested in seeing such situations). So in this sense nothing you do in ART should be unpredictable, and you are welcome to use whatever tool in whatever way you want. Sorry if this answer seems vague, but the question itself is too general to begin with imho.
Addendum: an exception is HDR output, since ART itself is SDR only for now (and for the foreseeable future I’m afraid). In this case, you can find some tips on how to cope with this here.
I don’t have anything like that and I’m not aiming for it.
HDR is not a problem for me.
No, your answer is not too bold for me, but wonderful. So I can continue to work with ART as intuitively and learn to understand it as before. That’s really wonderful and perfectly meets my need to edit my pictures.
You’ve said something similar before, that you can do anything you like.
Boris clearly says in the video tutorial that you shouldn’t use several tone mappers at the same time because of the problems …
at 04:13 - but he says this to darktable.
I will be happy to report abnormalities if I find any.
I would also like to mention that it is almost like a rush to use ART. And it’s a lot of fun to learn new things. Everything works great.
Right – that’s a different piece of software
Thank you, Alberto, everything is clear.
I have one more question:
Is it normal that you can get very similar results with different tools?
In other words, can you achieve the same or a similar effect with Log Tone Mapping as with Sigmoid or only with Tone Equalizer?
I tried a few settings and the results were pretty much the same. Except that the tuning was slightly different. I can’t really describe it. It’s like the different tools use different width masks and the results look different. Sometimes the face is lighter than the background, sometimes the other way around. Sigmoid in particular compensates very strongly for the differences between light and dark, so that it sometimes looks almost too artificial.
So my question is: can you really achieve almost identical results with the three tools mentioned, or are they made for different tasks?
Your doing global tone mapping with those modules… you are defining the compression of shadows and highlights. It generally makes sense to do this once. and then do local edits… sharpening could be the same but you just have to experiment. If you use more than one tool you are sharpening the sharpening as such…in some cases this may be desired and complimentary and in other cases it might create artifacts and undo the work of the other tool… only you will know through experimentation…
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Hello @priort
I assume by global tone mapping you mean: “Log Tone Mapping” or “Sigmoid”. And with the local edit the “Tone Equalizer”.
This procedure is understandable and easy to follow.
And in general, as you say: experiment and see exactly what comes out of it.
I try out a lot and I enjoy experimenting with ART.
Hello @priort
... doing tone mapping … and then do local edits…
I took your very good tip to heart and am totally enthusiastic about Sigmoid. I have opened a new topic here:
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