This is more of a theoretical question than one where I enocuntered in a picture. Can you select in the parametric mask in the hz tab two discontinuous hue ranges e.g. red-oranges and cyan-blue to apply the same operation or do you have to duplicate the module and change the hue rnage in the second instance?
EDIT: I guess I am thinking about an interface similar to the color zones but for the parametric masks
No. You will have to use 2 instances, duplicate the settings, and adapt the hue mask.
Ok thanks for the response @anon41087856 ! 
Followup question though: Is there a way to link the two module so that the duplicated module would be synchornized to the original and that any changes made to the one will be applied to the other as well?
Also would you consider such as change (color zones-inspired range selection) to be adding meaningless complexity to darktable?
i donāt consider this a must have feature but rather a nice-to-have/convenience feature that would be useful in some situations!
I am not sure I follow (Iām slow)ā¦but essentially the modules each take input from the module before it in the pipeline, perform the actions of the module and blend to give the result using any masking and or blend operator that is chosen. You can define a raster mask based on any earlier module in the pipeline and use that to apply changes to an identical area in subsequent modules but I as I am not 100% sure of what you are asking I am not sure this is what you need??
So from what I understand you can reuse the masks or shapes in other modules in the pipeline to apply different kind of adjustments to the same area. From what I understand if the mask you are referencing is later changed it will be updated for all the modules that use it as well.
I am sort of asking if the opposite is possible as well? Where you have a type of adjustment you want apply but the hue range you want to apply it to is discontinuous (this is just an example you may as well use a luminance range or a saturation range). Is there an option for the diplicated module to synchronize the values from the original?
Hope this makes a bit more sense?
I am relatively new to darktable and this is a question that popped into my head after reading the manual and watching Aurelienās and Borisā videos!!
Thinking off the top of my head each parametric mask will use the input values from the module before so for example what is selected by one range might not be the same. One thing that you can do is something like this use a no op module early in the pipe like exposure and use multiple instances where you define a parametric mask in each as needed then you could use these via the raster mask in later modules and the defined pixels wonāt change as noted aboveā¦ this may or may not work for you
Is there a way to link the two module so that the duplicated module would be synchornized to the original and that any changes made to the one will be applied to the other as well?
No. But itās not a bad idea.
I was trying to think of a use case for thisā¦I sure there is I just donāt see it in front of meā¦ I guess i could see it might be interesting if you were able to specify the input for a given module so that you were not tied to a linear order of module processingā¦you can of course re-order them but they are still processed in a serial manner ā¦ so either allowing modules to be grouped or to specify its inputā¦not sure how complicated that would be to trackā¦perhaps some of this is evolving in the VKDT project???
Keep in mind that the suggestion here is for use with (parametric) masks. So basically, each instance of the module affects a different region of the image (and thus will āseeā its part of the image as if any preceding instance of the module wasnāt there). Things could get messy if for any reason the masks in the different module instances overlapā¦
But, how often do you need the exact same correction on two disparate (color) selections?
Well I am not sure I agree esp as I understand it but I could be wrongā¦The next module even a duplicate will define its range of pixels for its parametric mask based on the input if receives from previous one so if you are selecting red and you alter it and the in next module your mask selects cyan. The range of the cyan may not be the same if the change you made on the red affects what is now considered cyan coming as input to the next moduleā¦where as if you were able to specify the input for each module then the parametric masks you could select red and then cyan as it was defined at some particular step in the pipelineā¦ I am not sure how you would use that to edit but I am sure there is a use caseā¦I think to do this now you need to define raster masks to make the selection staticā¦
Thats one use case for colorzones - you can have several peaks in your curve.
So not really something weirdā¦
Hmmā¦ I see what you mean. What if the parametric masks adopt an interface similar to the drawn masks. Instead of drawn mask it would write parametric mask and then next to it would be a list that would say 2 masks used. You would then proceed and press the button to show a list of the available masks. You would reuse the exact same interface for all of the masks you would just need to load their respective setting
This way we can define rules so if there is any overlap between the two areas we can just treat them as one whole or play with boolean operations if we need something more exotic
How does that sound?
I think you might be able to do thatā¦but within one module. The drawn masks can be reused in every module. If all your parametric masks use the reference input data to the module and then you define how they interact I guess that could work again I am no expert. To use the parametric mask in other modules you need to make it a raster mask or it loses it meaning in another module ā¦one thing that donned on me recently was I thought that the inclusive and exclusive settings only related to how the drawn and parametric masks interacted with one another but it also impacts the parametric mask itself it you use more than one channel. I am not sure I can wrap my head around it but you may want or need inclusive or exclusive to create your mask but this might be in some way conflictingā¦having said that in ART and likely RT although I am more familiar with ART in the local adjustment tool you can seem to add multiple masks of any typeā¦I will have to go back and see how that works and how it is processedā¦
But isnāt ācolor zonesā a specific module with a specific function?
As I understood @giannisscās question, he wanted such a selection option for any operation (like local contrast?).
@priort : if the output of the first instance would incorrectly push part of the colours into the range of the second mask, canāt you just inverse the order of those two modules (keeping in mind that we are talking about two instances of the same module).
And I havenāt seen anyone attack the question I posed (about how often you want the exact same correction in the situation at hand). I think it is a point to take into consideration before complicating an already rather complex part of the interface.
But isnāt ācolor zonesā a specific module with a specific function?
As I understood @giannisscās question, he wanted such a selection option for any operation (like local contrast?).
Yeah thatās exactly right!
And I havenāt seen anyone attack the question I posed (about how often you want the exact same correction in the situation at hand). I think it is a point to take into consideration before complicating an already rather complex part of the interface.
Here is were my inexpirience with editing and darktable comes in. I donāt yet have enough milage with it to draw from my personal experiences with it to say for sure. I was hoping that someone mroe experienced than me would jump in and explain if that is a legitimate usecase or not. I was sort of thinking of a simple scenario where you are at the beach or in a field where the sand of the grass is brownish, the sky is above it and there are some other elements in the scene but you want to apply similar processing to the sky and the grass which are disconitnues hues in the range slider
To be honest this is what I had in mindā¦
Does this look like something that might be useful for darktable? Focusing on @rvietor question does that seem to be a legitimate workflow? @anon41087856
I think this sort of handles the synchronized & duplicated modules idea as well!
you also need to indicate how these masks should be handled: and, or, xorā¦ to allow more then just one usecase.
and donāt forget: thereās also an output based masking that need to be taken into account too
Would the combine masks option handle that?
and donāt forget: thereās also an output based masking that need to be taken into account too
What do you mean by that?
