Thank you for the clarification. You wrote:
However, I was left wondering whether your default does not go too far into the opposite direction. (I mean for a generic default, of course increased midtone contrast is a valid artistic tool.)
A valid question! I have assigned dynamic shortcuts to all the modules I use most often. Therefore, I do not have to look at the parameters when adjusting my edit. (With dynamic shortcuts editing pictures becomes more like playing a video game than solving an engineering problem).
I usually make some minor adjustment on every picture, after applying my favourite styles. If I notice that I have to make a lot of adjustments all the time, I update my style. Otherwise I leave it at it is.
But your question got me curious on what filmic parameters I usually set. So I looked at a sample of (N=104) of the highest rated images I’ve taken the last 3 months.
As for the white relative exposure, 2.63 (the default of my most used style) was the most common value. But I finished a large number of images with 1-2 EV higher white relative exposure (WRE) than my starting point. But very seldom did my final WRE exceed Filmic’s default value.
So you’re right that 2.63 was a bit on the lower side. But not so low that it bothered me.
When we look at the black relative exposure we see that I almost never deviated from the setting in my favourite style.
And the final dynamic range was almost always lower than the Filmic default.
So what is the message I want you (plural) to take home?
- Learn how Darktable works from a technical and practical point of view.
- Find your own artistic style and make into Darktable defaults. Don’t bother with the numbers. Go for what you think looks good.
- Make it easy to make adjustments, because your defaults are never good enough for every situation.
This is interesting, would you care to elaborate? I thought that any tone mapping that filmic allows can be in principle also realized by adjusting base curves. The advantage of filmic would be that it makes it easier to realize sane tone curves.
Yes, the basecurve and filmic modules have the same purpose. But I found it very difficult to make any adjustment to the base curve so I always left it at some default value. I made an comparison between the modules in this thread: