Okay, a bit off kilter, but I just logged into my work laptop and was presented with a login image that looks a lot like the image we’ve been messing with here…
@Mister_Teatime, where is that?
I’ve been shooting photos of same patterns lately and I wouldn’t be able to do without being able to crank up the contrast and latitude to get the contrast into the images; they’re extremely flat.
Just because a slider is there doesn’t mean you have to move it. For a lot of photos, just black and white relative exposure is enough.
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Please add your own usage video and image, those were the most useful things for me. talking about it in the abstract isn’t doing us too much good.
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I would go even further and say: almost every image that went through filmic needs cranking up contrast. Or, as the manual says: “filmic rgb tends tends to compress local contrast, so after you have set up filmic rgb you may want to compensate for this using the local contrast module. You may also want to increase the saturation in the color balance module, and maybe further adjusts the tones using tone equalizer.”
So there are many other ways to achieve a better contrast. Out of a good reason: in most use cases contrast in filmic simply isn’t enough to deliver the right amount of punch. Just check the examples in this thread.
Or, as Jandren stated:
Your next point was:
Agreed. So why not let those additional sliders stay were they are to be used by more advanced users ? The essential sliders could be sampled on a “beginners” tab on the left.
The “quick access panel” of version 3.5.0 is a step in this direction and proves that some sort of slim down makes sence (also for other modules 
).
Yes, I also use the local contrast module and find it crutial, but don’t confuse local contrast with global contrast.
I’m very confused. In an earlier post you said we should get rid of more filmic sliders:
But now you seem to be agreeing with me that we need those sliders… So I don’t know what to make of what you’re trying to say.
Why not start a new topic and ask people? Or, since you already have ideas about how the usability can be enhanced start a topic about that where you and other people that think filmic can be/needs enhanced can all get together and hash it out. Once you have defined issues and possible solutions, then you can submit issues or PR’s to darktable for inclusion.
This thread started out as “how are you using filmic” but now it’s been hijacked into discussing filmic usability. Start a separate topic.
Speaking only as a user, I will say that my general approach is to adjust white balance and exposure for my subject and then adjust the white and black relative exposure sliders until I have the dynamic range under control. After that I’ll use increase the dynamic range scaling slider to accommodate local contrast and then I’m off to make make creative changes with tone, color, sharpness, etc. I rarely have a need to touch anything else within Filmic and I usually don’t have to go back to it. I might have to adjust contrast and latitude if I have an extreme scenario.
I’ve often wondered if I’m missing something because I don’t seem to have the issues others have had, but I’ve found these steps are all that’s necessary. At times I’ll have issues with desaturation where I don’t want it or out of gamut conditions with extreme blues, but I know to look for these and have learned to deal with them.
Any rate, here’s my take on your photo. I really like the rugged hillside and turbulent sky. Filmic took me less then a minute, about five minutes to pull out the cloud detail and another 20 minutes having fun with creative edits.
Mountain pass.CR2.xmp (82.4 KB)
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I think you’ve got it down well.
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Sorry to confuse you, was not my intention.
I’ve started the Let's learn Filmic RGB! Your one stop shop to understanding filmic-based approach to edits! thread exactly for this - to see where people are having problems.
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Replying to Dave Goldberg - I tend to use the same workflow that you describe.
Global Changes:
- Crop, (if required)
- White Balance and Color Calibration
- Filmic scene tab to adjust White and Black exposure sliders
Localised tweaks
4. Local Contrast
5. Color Balancing
While doing 4 and 5 I rarely have to go back and tweak the Globals.
HOWEVER, being of a curious mind, I want to understand what the buttons do in case I am missing some great ideas/techniques.
There are comments floating around like:
“filmic gives you a flat looking baseline, do the cosmetic tweaking in other modules”
“increase the latitude until the histogram starts to clip”
However, you can’t have everything - there is always a tradeoff somewhere.
So in Filmic what benefits can you get from the “look” tab options: contrast and latitude?
I understand what these sliders do to an image, and to an extent I understand how they achieve that, but not the tradeoffs between the various options.
Any helpful hints?
I never set contrast in the Filmic module, but in the color calibration. There is no real reason why I don’t do this in Filmic. I just find it easier in Color Calibration
One important setting in Filmic which has caused me a lot of headaches is the “Preserve Chrominance” in the Option tab.
By default this is set to “RGB Power Norm” but selecting another option might give you better results. In the landscape photo provided in this topic, when keeping this option to RGB power norm it leaves this harsh yellowish skies. Setting this to ‘no’ gives a desaturated sky which I prefer.
This desaturated sky looks unnatural so by using the colorize option, you give it back some color tho make it more convincing.
For the record: I’m no DT specialist and I’m learning every day. But very often I have the ‘why is it doing this?’ reaction. It takes some research and studying on the why’s of DT
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As I tried to point out (sorry for any confusion I’m producing, I’m no english native) I use the “look” tab mainly for middle tone desaturation, because sometimes filmic shifts colours in an unpredictable or, for my taste, undesired way. In this cases I also play with preserve chrominance.
In my workflow latitude or shadows / highlight balance is used for the very few cases when the graphical display in filmic shows incorrect values (orange coloured parts of the curve) e.g. as a result of intensive tweaking white relative exposure. I estimate this is the case in may be 1 or 2 out of 50 images I process. Another use case that comes to my mind is, when the highlights or shadows are still too strong and the curve needs some additional tweaking. Sometimes it helps a bit.
contrast: I have to admit that I don’t understand why there is a contrast slider in filmic, as there are so many other modules to tweak contrast, that have to be used anyway. I sometimes fiddle a bit with it and if it leads to the desired result, keep it.
In my experience playing with the sliders in the look tab can easily lead to orange values whithout achieving the desired result and thus, need correction done with the help of other sliders. This is another reason why I rarely use them. Imho slider-fiddling is a “time eater” and I feel the results can often be easier achieved in other modules.
All this is my personal opinion and my personal experience. Other users may have made different ones. Try it for yourself and find your way.
Using dt and especially filmic needs more learning, try and error as, e.g. LR. But once you’ve got it it’s a wonderful tool.
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My approach is very similar. But for landscape shots, I almost always want local contrast and haze removal on, so I will usually apply those before adjusting filmic because those two modules affect the black and white points. Previously, I would get my dynamic range where I wanted it with filmic, then apply local contrast / haze removal, and then have to go back to filmic to tweak the black and white points again. So I find it quicker to mess with filmic a bit later in the workflow.
I used to have more issues with filmic, mainly because there is so much that it can do, and it usually plays such an important role in the processing, that I thought I should be using most of its functionality. But I have since learned that I can often turn it on, gently tweak the dynamic range and then just leave it alone. I do the vast majority of my edits in the color balance module, including contrast, saturation, color grading, and dodging and burning. I feel that many users could benefit from treating filmic more like the old base curve, i.e. turn it on and then leave it. With base curve (and RT’s auto-matched tone curve for that matter), it’s best to do further tonal tweaks in a separate curve module. Filmic can be treated in a similar way. Although you obviously have the choice to do much more with it if you want to.
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I fully agree
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Speaking only for myself, my objective is to use Filmic to reach a “roughed-in” image for creative editing. So sometimes I’ll adjust the contrast to get the right general appearance and in doing so, I might have to play with the latitude to avoid clipping or overshooting the saturation curve. It’s strictly a matter of preference and I usually just leave it as-is.
Yes, I’ve done that, too. By now I pretty much know how much headroom I need for dynamic range and I can set the Filmic module ahead of local contrast.
I have to wonder if that’s part of the problem. We see a slider, so we adjust it and that causes something peculiar, so we adjust another slider to compensate. Rinse and repeat until you have a mess on your hands. But then again, we’re always once click away from a reset…
Here is my try on that beautiful scene. Sadly i am not experienced in dealing with overexposure.
Maybe somebody can tell me how to deal with overexposure with the filmic module.
_MG_0653_06.CR2.xmp (30.7 KB)
Just a data point from a long time user:
I have been going through some two year old photo sets and reprocessing the raw files from scratch. My new scene-referred workflow is to turn off filmic, and set a decent exposure with the exposure module. I then turn filmic on, and use the colour pickers for white and black exposure.
This alone is enough to get a pretty good start point. There is very little fiddling that has to be done in filmic, but the options are there if you need them.
Once I am happy with WB in color calibration, 80% of the photos already look better than the legacy display referred workflow. A few more tweaks and most photos (but by no means all) are greatly improved in terms of contrast and colour balance.
Filmic usability is not bad out of the box!
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Lake District, 2019. Have no idea where exactly we were, though… it’s some time ago.
(And I absolutely definitely took it myself, on my trusty old 6D which sadly died this year)
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