Hi guys
When I recently bought a new Nikon Z6III camera, I upgraded from DT 3.8.1 to DT 4.8.1 to be able to load a new camera profile, which made it possible to work with the new files from Nikon Z6III.
But since then, I have struggled with getting natural colors on my nature photos.
Previously when I upgraded from DT 2.6 to DT 3.8.1 I had the same challenges, at that time the solution was to create a Style with ”Base curve”, which I loaded on all my photos, but it doesn’t work anymore.
All I want is to ”start” with an image that is approx. like the JPG image that comes from the camera (when I save in JPG), so that I can start with a ”JPG look” and then optimize my image from this starting point, but the images in DT are flat, dark, and less saturated.
Is there anyone who can help with settings/styles that give a JPG-like image.
Many thanks in advance.
Attached example of file exported from DT and an unedited JPG file from Nikon.
Darktable 5 comes with camera styles.
Alternatively, you may want to revert to legacy display-referred processing in preferences.
If you stay with the scene-referred workflow but don’t apply the camera style, you can use sigmoid for more contrast and more saturated colours, or use filmic with color balance rgb.
You can read the manual or watch tutorials, see the resources section on darktable.org.
Maybe posting an image as playraw would give you the opportunity to see what others do. I personally prefer to use sigmoid because it gives bolder colors straight out of the box while filmic gives subdued flat colors which seems to be what you are experiencing. Sigmoid will definitely help you.
Also for my Canon R7 I created a picture style that gives me a nice starting point. When it is applied it includes initially sharpening and denoising, stronger contrast in Sigmoid (1.700), contrast and shadows adjustment in color balance rgb module, Shadow and highlights module at default setting, Local contrast at default setting and finally color zones module to produce colors more like the out of camera JPGs. White balance and color calibration alone cannot produce the desired colors for my needs.
BTW, why not upgrade to DT5.0 for the latest improvements?
3300b63194ceddb208dd6b2e1388d764d5bbf9dd.jpeg.xmp (9.9 KB)
A very quick edit starting from your jpg…
Thanks for the input @Terry, I’ll try it tomorrow.
@lightlover, that looks impressive, what settings did you use?
Original RAW file is now uploaded.
2024-12-09_Fuglsang_Sø_DSC_0175.NEF (35.9 MB)
Rauff… you should probably tag the CC version of your choice to your file , ie something like…
“” 
“”
You can apply the xmp to your jpg to see, basically i raised contrast and saturation.
Hi @lightlover, when I load your xmp file, it seems that there are many modules that have been adjusted (as seen in my attached image).
I am a novice in DT, so I would be very grateful if you could tell me which modules you have adjusted.
Hi @Tim,
when I load your xmp file, it seems that there are many modules that have been adjusted (as seen in my attached image).
I am a novice in DT, so I would be very grateful if you could tell me which modules you have adjusted.
Apart from denoise, up to orientation, modules are at default values so most of the activity is in color balance rgb, color equalizer and tone equalizer.
Be aware though that i edited the jpg file.
Looking at this might give you context…
https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.8/en/overview/workflow/process/
The only ones I adjusted were Crop, Color Balance RGB, and Filmic. I’m pretty sure all the others were just turning on the module and, for some of them, selecting a defined preset.
NEF->RT 5.11, auto tone match, black level, shadow compression, highlight compression, re-size, RL deconvolution:
Hi @Terry
Without knowing what “scene-referred sigmoid” is, it seems to give a better starting point than “scene-referred filmic”. After upgrading to 5.0, I automatically get “darktable camera settings” where I can choose Nikon Z6III, but that also gives a lot of noise in the image, what is the reason for that?
Hi @priort, I’m a beginner and I simply don’t understand the meaning of what you’re writing.
Hi @cedric, I’m a beginner and I don’t know what the things you write mean.
When you post an image you should add the creative Commons licence so that others can edit and exchange with you.
The darktable camera settings you refer to don’t include noise reduction or sharpening. The denoise (profiled) modules works well in most cases at the default values when it is activated. The default values are set according to factors such as the camera model and the ISO used.
I have created my own camera style for my Canon R7 and it includes initial sharpening and denoise (profiled) default. I have a reasonably good laptop with a dedicated graphics card so having denoising and sharpening doesn’t slow the computer down while editing. However, some people like to sharpen and denoise at the end of the editing steps.
I 100% recommend reading about different modules and features in the user guide.
https://darktable-org.github.io/dtdocs/en/
https://darktable-org.github.io/dtdocs/en/module-reference/processing-modules/denoise-profiled/
https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/4.8/en/overview/workflow/process/
As Terry said DT does very little out of the gate to your image. You can customize this and develop auto applied settings but by default it will be as you note in many cases appear dull… DT does not apply a profile that fully tones and strongly bumps color like other software does…this is the part that you have to develop… you can get a sense of this approach in the link above for some background context… So DT will not give you the super jpg that many people expect ie many people seem to think of raw as a super jpg …it will start out looking the same or very close but it has more data and so you can just make better edits…you generally can make better edits but its just the raw data not the OOC jpg recipe with more data…