I’ve been reprocessing a few old pics with the latest dt. Here’s one from 2019 of Colombian band La Perla. I like what filmic reconstruction has done to her face, but it’s causing colour to bleed from a maracca into the background. How can this be prevented?
Anyway, I hope this photo is an interesting playraw.
Canon 6D ISO 12800
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This is one of those RAWs where I do not like to use filmic rgb, it introduces more problems then it solves. Could be just me, but here we are. So here’s an edit without using filmic rgb or highlight reconstruction for that matter.
EDIT: Initially missed a part of her right arm. Fixed.
I tried to edit this image, but the colors and blacks are so weird, I didn’t pursue it very far. The artificial lighting is overwhelming, and I don’t think there’s any way for someone who did not see the actual scene to edit it, properly.
In this case it is rather hard to determine what the actual colours should be.
This women seems to be Caucasian so I tried to get the, lighter parts of the skin to be ~75% R, ~65% G and ~55% B. All else should fall into place if you get that right. But this is easier said then done to be honest.
She’s also probably Columbian, so I might be off with my Caucasian starting point.
This is the best I could do with a quick edit. I’m still a beginner when it comes to editing, specially dealing with color. Still not satisfied with the overall colour but I think it turned out okay.
First time dealing with an old Canon raw file and It’s great even at such a high ISO, the colors are much more vibrant out of the box than my Fuji files.
But I personally disagree with trying to make the skin look “correct” without considering the lighting. IMO, it should look like what it looked like in the setting. But maybe that’s just me.
But you do need a starting point from which you can then make the edit reflect what the scene was like (colour/light/etc). Skin, in this case, seems to be the thing that one can be somewhat certain about (Although I doubt she’s actually Caucasian, her skin is probably more red/brown compared to the roughly 75/65/55% ratio).
In this case I found it very hard to determine if the reddish lights are from external red light source(s), a ~10 year old sensor, camera settings or a mix of those. And, as mentioned by you, not having been there leaves you with a certain amount of artistic freedom when attempting an edit.
@Claes hi, I’ve tried a few things but I can’t see the negative value(s). Is it possible you could post up an xmp which exposes them pls?
@paperdigits , I might try that though I think it would be tricky to get it looking good?
@Jade_NL , a good point, filmic is not mandatory! I like your version though I think it needs to be a little more lively, I tried more global brilliance in the colour balance module.
@hatsnp I think that’s very good for a quick beginner edit.
@age I think this is the best one, I like the skin tone. Like others, you’ve cropped less than I did. I don’t think the bottom quarter contributes much.
@jandren Glad it was of use! What’s happening with Sigmoid? Is the idea to put it into dt?, I remember there was a lot of discussion months ago.
@Tim , each to his own, though remember there’s that business of perceiving colour. I’m no expert but isn’t it that when you’re at the gig surrounded by the scene, your eyes and brain simply make sense of it all and it seems natural and acceptable. But if you looked at a picture, with accurate colours as per the gig, in your living room, it would look weird, because your eyes and brain now see “normal” as the colours in your room and through the window, and the person in the picture looks very strange. So we have to tone it down to make it acceptable.
As Tim says I this is very difficult to edit when you do not know what the lighting an overall feel was. I guess she has some greenish light coming from one direction, and something else from another, and then there’s the sunlight in the background. Made two quick edits in rawstudio with different white balance compromises, warmish and greenish.
hmmm no! I still can’t see negative values (loading your xmp of course). I changed the setting, and also changed to display-referred workflow, and re-launched dt for good measure, but no negatives.
@Thomas_Do , thanks, yes, another good one I’d say. And no filmic. I must use Tone Eq more.
@Claes , I put the picker same as you, you can see it on my first screenshot.
I meant the legacy vs. modern settings, not your build!
The as-shot white factors are because I do the “unity white balance” method where you use a custom WB that has equal factors. It’s supposed to help judge the camera histogram more reliably for overexposure/ETTR.
The as-shot white factors are because I do the “unity white balance”
Aha! That’s the culprit, then.
Evidently, dt in legacy mode automatically sets wb to as shot,
while in a more modern mode, it sets wb to the camera’s ref point.
It’s progressing and I have some nice updates to it coming up.
Will be interesting to see what the response is from devs and users this time. There are no actual plans on implementing it yet, at least not from the main devs’ side. I hope it is closer to good enough this time around so that plans can be made for it!
I meant the legacy vs. modern settings, not your build!