Filmic vs Sigmoid - when to use which

In sigmoid you usually adjust 3 sliders:

  • contrast
  • skew
  • chroma preservation (mostly affects the highlights)

In filmic v7, it’s quite similar:

  • white and black relative exposure (often with auto picker)
  • contrast
  • highlights saturation mix.

Admittedly, I use a filmic preset that sets the contrast in highlights / shadows controls to safe, but then with sigmoid I also use one of two presets (the built-in smooth, of the ‘alternative / sRGB’ values from Introducing "primaries" feature for sigmoid).

These days, I use sigmoid more than I used to, but sometimes filmic gives better (or equally good, just different) results. It’s good to have both available.

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