Editing moments with darktable

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

@danny

I see you prefer the node interface over slider interface

I completely forgot that this option exists. I should have mentioned it in the video.

But I have to say, I don’t miss it because I find the curve much more intuitive to work with. That was already the case with the tone equalizer. That was probably also the reason why I forgot about this option.

[hannoschwalm (Jens-Hanno Schwalm)]

@Popanz

The fixed node distance is not to my taste

Yes, this is like others feel. Unfortunately the involved maths would “explode” and would leave the behaviour very prone to unexpected results. No chance to keep a guided filter stable. So i see no chance for that

BTW: The maths in color-zone is quite different

[Popanz (Uli)]

Thanx for this clarification. I can live with that, as long as colour-zone doesn’t get deprecated.
Now I first have to inspect in detail the possibilities of colour-equalizer, to see when I use that and when colour-zones.
Again, thank you to you and the other developers, making darktable what it is.

[Tamas_Papp (Tamas K. Papp)]

Thanks for another very useful video. Just curious: what lens did you use for the leaves? It is an amazingly sharp image.

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

@Tamas_Papp

what lens did you use for the leaves?

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR

[Rajkhand (Raj)]

Excellent video, never thought this module could be so useful.

[Pascal_Obry]

Excellent as usual! Thanks.

[will_mckinnon]

Would it be possible to do an episode similar to your moody orange guide, but focused on reproducing the popular high contrast and lifted black look? Something akin to the look of Evolumina would really help my workflow. I had accomplished a similar look in Lightroom and seeing how it translates to darktable would really help!

[redgoblin83 (Charly)]

Thanks for this episode, as always good learning material.

Now that we have a lop of episodes of you and know more about the tools, I get overwhelmed by these tools, what to use when: rgb primaries, color eq mod, color calibration, color balance rgb? It feels like they all can do the same, but with more or less work to it regarding masks etc.

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

@redgoblin83

Now that we have a lop of episodes of you and know more about the tools, I get overwhelmed by these tools, what to use when: rgb primaries, color eq mod, color calibration, color balance rgb? It feels like they all can do the same, but with more or less work to it regarding masks etc.

They don’t do the same thing, but I can understand that it could be very confusing, especially for beginners.

In very simplified terms, you can imagine it a bit like a good stereo system with five decks.

For brightness:

1. amplifier - exposure module (for manipulation of the brightness as a whole)
2. equalizer - tone equalizer - (you divide the brightness into eight segments that can be manipulated individually by the nodes)

For colors:

3. amplifier - adjustment of three basic channels, red, green and blue, with color calibration (white balancing, channel mixing) and rgb primaries (channel mixing)
4. equalizer - color equalizer (you divide the whole hue range into eight segments that can be manipulated individually by the nodes) and color balance rgb (manipulation of brightness and hues separately for shadows, midtones and highlights)

And at the top for both aspects:

5. compressor with “hard limiter” - filmic or sigmoid as tonemapper

With a stereo system, you can also use the amplifier to roughly amplify/regulate the bass, mid-range and treble with the three knobs.

But if you sometimes want to have better control over the sound for playback, you are more likely to use additionally an equalizer, because you can use it to adjust the entire frequency spectrum more precisely, which you can adapt to the respective piece of music.

[julibito]

Wow, a very adjustable image of the modules and their use. Thank you for that.

[DarekK]

Boris.
If you could make a video about processing sunset or sunrise photos. Especially when the sun shines directly into the lens. It is still quite strong and blinding, but in a moment it will be weak enough to look at with the naked eye.

I am very interested in some systematic lecture about cooperation of Sigmoid Skew and Hue preservation with Color Balance RGB.
For now I work quite chaotically and completely by feel.
Something like in old games “pick up a stone, maybe there will be additional points (or hidden death)”.

Thank you. Your videos so far are fantastic.

Greetings
Darek K

[DarekK]

This is development only with using Color Balance RGB (Sigmoid is not touched)

And this is development when I use Skew (+90), Hue preservation (40) and Color Balance RGB settings but without 4 ways tab.

I little more like this development because of transitin from white through yellow to orange
I don’t know how to achieve the same effect only using Color Balance RGB.
Maybe it is not possible or play “gues what happens when…”

[priort (Todd Prior)]

@DarekK

For now I work quite chaotically and completely by feel.

If you look back in the forum there are lots of discussions around the sigmoid module…The skew is pretty straitforward… positive lifts the blacks a bit and makes a sharper transition to white and the reverse…negative crushes the blacks more and softens the transition to white…

If you grab a grey ramp and set the histogram to show the selected area…you can move the skew slider and see how it will map tones…

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

New episode: portrait editing with sigmoid module:

Darktable Episode 84: Request - portrait editing with sigmoid module as tone-mapper

Unfortunately another rather long break…
I hope this will change soon.

[Brian_Innes]

Another good video, very informative and well produced.

Digressing slightly, may I enquire as to which linux distro you are using?

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

Thanks @Brian_Innes !

I am currently using Ubuntu Studio 22.04 and plan to upgrade to 24.04 soon.
Maybe I will also switch to standard Ubuntu 24.04, because you can meanwhile easily install all software for graphical design without having to use a special distribution.

[Brian_Innes]

Thanks for the reply! Although I fear Ubuntu 24.04 based distros are a bit of a disaster with regards to Wayland etc, but that’s probably a topic for another thread

[PD1 (PD)]

The video is amazing. Your understanding of DT shows up in no uncertain ways. It also shows the depth of DT; you can create an output using tools you are most comfortable with, and you will come to the same level if you used another approach. This is what I learnt, use tools that you are comfortable with, and not be restricted to any one for your output. Thanks again for the tutorial

[Guillermo]

Many thanks fot your instructive lessons.

As you are open to suggestions, I would appreciate so much this kind of processing to be updated to the current DT version: https://youtu.be/xIWfTE1KLCY?si=XMGSaEo13SNvTAQa
I believe that there have been important changes in noise, colour treatment and histogram stretching

Thank you anyway!!