I have studied your result with interest. It’s correct that the blacks are not clipped in your version, and this surprised me!
You use the exposure module in automatic mode. I have always used it in manual mode, which is the default mode. I don’t think that manual/automatic mode makes any significant difference. The real significant trick seems to by your tiny adjustment of the black level correction slider in the exposure module. I have never used that slider before but I certainly will in the future….!
As far as I understand: Adjustment of the middle grey luminance slider in filmic is equivalent to adjusting the exposure in the exposure module. You can choose to adjust the middle grey or the exposure - it makes no difference.
darktable has many ways to do the same thing and sometimes a situation needs the one and another situation the other. Some advise: Don’t get into the habit of sticking to just a handful of modules. This is a good approach when you start using dt so one doesn’t get overwhelmed, but expand when feeling comfortable.
Correct. I’ve been experimenting with the automated mode for a few days now and technically the end-results for both are the same. I do think I like working with the automated one better though (did you see or have a look at Aurélien’s fast workflow for pros/time-constrained photographers? might be worth it).
Although technically true I cannot get good results using the middle grey slider in filmic rgb and I’m not the only one.
Aurélien is still developing filmic rgb and it might be that the middle grey slider will be removed/fixed in place/changed (don’t know how, compatibility with earlier versions might be an issue) and as you might have read in the editing moments link I mentioned in my previous reply other things might change as well. It might be considered strange that you need to go to 2 modules to do this.
Anyway: Hope you enjoy this “new” way of approaching this.
I use screen and multiply blend mode all the time…if you have a washed out or dark pic sometimes rather than tweaking a bunch of things related to exposure and contrast I simply apply a linear…strait line tone curve in either screen or multiply…so to lighten or darken and then I edit from there…multiply is awesome to bring a washed out photo back to life…blend modes are a hidden gem that i think many users over look…
@s7habo Boris you mentioned 2 instances is your first with default settings then the one with mulitply…I did not see you mention the difference between the two instances??thx
Nothing special. In some photos multiplication blend mode “neutralizes” a little bit local contrast in medium grey area. With second instance you can correct this.
Yes…!
I think that blend modes could be an interesting topic to investigate and discuss in the forum. Which blend mode to use with which modules in which situations? And which blend modes doesn’t go well with the filmic way of editing photos?
There are many blend modes, but I have only seen the following used in “normal situations”: multiply, screen, softlight and overlay. Blend modes are apparently seldom used in the darktable universe……
I use blend modes all the time in a pixel editor (photoshop or affinity - haven’t used gimp yet). Never thought about using blend modes in a raw editor.
can you please explain this with some example pics as to when to use single instance with multiply blend mode and when to use the second instance with normal. specially when to to use which method
2.5 hours of video can seem a little bit scaring if you are time-constrained…! But since the video consists of a lot of examples of editing you can stop or pause anytime. I can absolutely recommend the video.
All the editing is being performed with a fixed setting of filmic! No filmic slider is adjusted in 2.5 hours! All the editing is done by using the exposure module (in automatic mode) and the color balance tool (and sometimes a few others: white balance, lowpass filter etc.). @anon41087856 is playing the darktable concert instrument for 2.5 hours, excellent and a lot of tricks to be learned.
I’m left with one question: in which situations should you adjust the filmic settings?
I asked: I’m left with one question: in which situations should you adjust the filmic settings?
and your answer is:
……and this is not often required? If yes, I suggest that the user manual is modified so you up front are advised to turn on filmic using your settings and not touch it again unless you have special needs.
As of now, you have to read through page 108-114 and try to digest the information. In the end, you get a suggested simple workflow, but more complicated than the one presented in your video.
By the way: you can assign a shortcut to your excellent preset by presets>shortcuts>global>styles and then click on the style you want to assign a shortcut to…….
Thank you for an excellent video and a fine preset, works really well……
I am but a designer. Meaning I try to solve people’s problems.
Some people (like me) want a fine-grained control. They can tweak filmic ad nauseam, following the manual.
Some people want a semi-automatic way to process images. So they can use a preset, leave filmic as set, and bother about exposure.
Nothing is ever required. It’s all about matching intent and method.
AH, I knew it was possible somewhere Thanks !
Yes, the channel mixer is a simple tool, at the foundation of image processing. It does exactly what the input color profile does : a matrix multiplication. As most simple operations, it is very powerful in terms of use. And yet, simple operation doesn’t mean simple to use. I don’t think you can escape some theory if you want to use it.
Disclaimer, before I start: I’ve messed with the dt filmic module just enough to know I need to go and watch @anon41087856’s videos… so, I do not have specific knowledge about how they work.
But, I do know the fundamental characteristics of a filmic curve, and to me that’s important to developing heuristics regarding its use. Essentially, it’s log-like, with a toe on the left end. You play with the toe to “crisp-up” the blacks, and you play with the shoulder and central linear line to mess with the overall tone distribution. In rawproc, my tone tool has a curve plot to show one what the selected tone operator and its parameters will do to the image, and I’ve found that to be of critical importance in applying it to particular images.
For instance, my test raw for rawproc is a scene with a specular highlight (locomotive headlamp), a mid-morning cumulus-cloudy sky mixed with locomotive steam and smoke, and a triple-headed train where the locomotives sport various shades of gray-to-black. When I scale the image to fit black-white where the headlight is blown (don’t yell at me @heckflosse, I’ll get around to figuring out librtprocess highlight recovery… ), it almost looks good as-is, linear. Indeed, when I put the basic filmic on it, the steam, smoke, and cloud definition gets lost in that rather lofty shoulder headed to white. Really, I’ve found that the best curve for this image is a custom curve with two control points: one on the exact center of the line, unmoved, and a lower one drug slightly below the neutral line to pull the shadows down a bit.
So, summed up, here’s what I think is important about any tone curve selection:
know what linear looks like for the particular image, and,
know the transform curve of whatever tone operator you apply to move from linear.
That’s it. log, log-gamma, reinhart, filmic, custom; same two fundamentals.
In the snowstorms around here, I had a few pictures outside the house. This is the first time I was missing some of Lightroom’s highlight controls :).
The problem was not getting the highlights within range or anything, filmic did it nicely. But to make the snow pop a bit more you need local contrast or something.
Local-contrast module didn’t seem to do it, or at least not enough from what I was searching for.
I ended up (after the normal white-balance, exposure, color calibration, filmic set) adding local-contrast, but in the bilateral mode. Turn the contrast all the way down, put the details quite high (too high for comfort) and adjust the coarseness this way till you think it right.
Then I add a parametric mask, enable the ‘mask-view’ mode and turn the L of the parametric section up till you only have the highlights selected. This way it only works on the highlights (snow) without affecting the rest of the image. Put the feather-radius and mask-blur up a bit so the mask has no sudden edges.
If the effect is too strong, turn the opacity of the mask down to control it in a smoother fashion.
With the contrast down I get no haloing whatsoever. At least not on the few pictures I took yesterday :).
Yep, most tone curves are flat at the top, so high-key things like snow tend to suffer in contrast. The challenge is to make the tone curve slope at that point steeper, without goofing up adjacent areas’ contrast… That’s why I’m reverting to a control-point curve in some instances; no math to get in the way of that.
!
! But since the video consists of a lot of examples of editing you can stop or pause anytime. I can absolutely recommend the video.
Thanks !
), it almost looks good as-is, linear. Indeed, when I put the basic filmic on it, the steam, smoke, and cloud definition gets lost in that rather lofty shoulder headed to white. Really, I’ve found that the best curve for this image is a custom curve with two control points: one on the exact center of the line, unmoved, and a lower one drug slightly below the neutral line to pull the shadows down a bit.