Folks
This is my first post here.
Relatively new to DT and have learnt a huge amount by binging Boris’s YT videos and making similar adjustments side by side.
My question is about contrast.
In DT, I see three general methods for creating contrast:
Creating contrast though saturation and brilliance etc in Colour Balance RGB.
Creating contrast though Sharpen/Diffuse or Local Contrast modules.
Creating contrast with the Tone Equalizer.
Generally I understand (and please correct me if I am wrong) that you would almost always create contrast in Colour Balance RGB. You would often create contrast though Sharpen/Diffuse, depending on taste and artistic application.
When is it recommended to use Tone Equalizer to create contrast?
In what technical or artistic application is this a recommended pathway for contrast?
Both sigmoid and filmic have contrast adjustments which I tend to use before the modules you have used, but Darktable allows you to choose multiple methods to achieve the desired outcome so I am not saying my methods are better. I never use tone equalizer for contrast adjustment but rather for brightening or darkening parts of the image. I also often use the local contrast module for ‘local contrast’ rather than global contrast. I personally don’t use the sharpen/diffuse local contrast option, but that is just me. I am also not sure if there is any advantage or disadvantage in using contrast adjustment in color balance module rather than filmic or sigmoid. I rarely do contrast in the color balance module since I have usually already done this in filmic or sigmoid. However, if I am in color balance module and feel the need to tweak the contrast I will then play with that slider.
Personally, I use whatever looks good rather than feeling constrained to some recommended pathway. Others may disagree with my approach.
Default procedure is sigmoid/filmic contrast first, then color balance rgb (mostly for colour, a little bit for tone), then something like local contrast preset in diffuse and sharpen module, then tone eq for making lighter or darker.
As far as there is a “default procedure”, I’d say it starts with exposure correction, then white balance, tonemapping (to set the dynamic range), correction of colour and contrast, followed by (if needed) correction of local contrast. After that adjustments to parts of the scene.
But this is my personal way of working, and I often go back to earlier steps for small corrections.
Reasoning: exposure correction fixes the invariant point for the tonemapping with filmic/sigmoid, so has to be done before those. White balancing early is just to get “pleasing” colours asap. Tonemapping and contrast determine the global dynamic range for the output image. By now I usually have a good starting point for further work.
I avoided mentioning specific modules, as there are almost always several ways to do a particular correction. Which way you choose depends on how you approach the editing.
Example: For the tone mapping, there are at least 5 options: filmic, sigmoid, tone equaliser, tone curves, exposure correction with masks.
I didn’t include basecurve there, as that needs an input dynamic range of 0…1, so you will have to control that with one of the tonemap options (though it doesn’t make much sense to use the predefined basecurves with filmic or sigmoid).
Hi, when I’m not satisfied or for another reason decide not to rely on the previously mentioned tools one creative and interesting to create contrast that I use often, is one I believe I picked up looking at one of @kofa edit is :
Using a seperate instance of color calibration and in the “grey” tab to create a B&W conversion of the image using the R/G/B weight proposed method then setting in “blend modes” “luminance only”
This allows you to create according to the present colors bright or dark areas at will and even managing to some extend your general lightness level as you can exceed 1.0 when adding all three sliders levels.
That was a few month ago, I’m not sure anymore but that’s how I remember it
Absolutely right ! And I have the feeling that to even just have a taste to the myriad of Darktable functionalities and creative combination of those this forum is very useful ! Learned so many tricks in “play raws” and in @s7haboEditing moments with darktable
