Thank you for this very helpful clarification on some of the points with the new scene-referred workflow! After reading through this FAQ as well as this other recent thread, something finally clicked for me and it now is much clearer. I think the two things I was missing before were:
- understanding that the exposure module is primarily for adjusting the midtones; don’t worry about the shadows and highlights since we will adjust those later in filmic rgb. Also, using the color assessment toggle to help with getting a proper exposure
- understanding the difference between clipping in the raw file verses clipping introduced as part of the editing process (and understanding that filmic rgb’s reconstruct tab is targeted at the former)
I think previously I was underexposing the midtones because I was concerned when the highlights were getting clipped in the exposure module, but now realizing that I can mostly ignore what is happening to the highlights when using exposure and then pull them back afterwards in filmic rgb has helped.
I wrote up the steps I am now using with the scene-referred workflow here; I am amazed at how fast it is to process images now and get good results.