Dark output files - overcoming personal bias?

Exposure bias is a thing i recognize , but i mostly have it the other way around in the edit.

Ever since filmic v4 i made edits that i liked , and was comparing them to my previous ‘go to workflow’. I noticed that almost always my darktable and filmic v4 versions came out brighter and a bit flatter.

Now looking at the older edits before darktable, i find them horrible strong in contrast and with too much darks. So much that in commercial software like ON1 or DxO i often now start by reducing the contrast slider.

I’ve wondered if that was 'just getting used to something ’ but i now often get remarks that they look nice and natural , and making small prints around the house they come over well … so i shrug and think it’s fine enough for me :).

But i still take the shot almost always at -1ev or even more underexposed. But - maybe the nerd side of me - i see the camera as a 'light capture device ’ , and the computer and software as ‘making the photograph’. The shot i take (as in, what the camera shows on screen as the jpg) doesn’t need to be close or similar to what my edit will look like. I record the scene , and have - sometimes :pensive: - an idea of what i want to do with it later.

So, my brighter exposure bias has surely not come from taking overexposed shots , because i underexpose like crazy. It did teach me to feel unrestricted in what the exposure slider in Darktable ‘needs to be’, so i just start dragging to see what i get.

I don’t think there is 'a correct exposure ', so also no way to teach yourself the ‘correct’ exposure.
If you tend to make dark edits , and you like it, be done and happy :). If you tend to make dark edits , and later notice you like them brighter , start with a higher default exposure in a preset or something , to make yourself get used to brighter pictures.