After some experimentation with Darktable I found that I could produce reasonable images by disabling the base curve and replacing this with a simple S curve using the Tone Curve module.
I do however suspect that I am totally misunderstanding Darktable. I am sure there are ways of producing better images but I have spent hours experimenting with Filmic and Filmic RGB without success.
If anybody could point me in the right direction I would be extremely grateful.
Hello, before using Filmic disable the base curve!
I get this after changing some sliders in filmic rgb (and nothing else), should be considered as a starting point.
My way to use filmic is :
1)recover the highlights moving the exposure slider to the left like you have done
2)in the filmic module set the contrast to 1.125 , shadow/highlights balance to 0 %, preserve the chrominance= no
3)move the middle gray luminance as you like Jane_filmic.ARW.xmp (7.7 KB)
It was important to me, that the character (skin and hair) stays in the foreground (If I think about it now, I should have darkened the background a bit).
It was also important that the lighter parts of the skin don’t look faded or overexposed and show a smooth transition. Here lies the great strength of the linear RGB workflow by @anon41087856!
Most of them are applied automatically. I start with exposure or directly with Filmic RGB. The most important in your example were exposure, Filmic RGB, local contrast and color balance. That does most of the work already. After that I do the little things like contrast equalizer to sharpen the image or similar things. Such things can be kept well in the overview.
Adjusting scene grey or exposure gives the same result. In this easy situation, I keep the modules number minimal. If I need more advanced retouching, I usually use exposure first. That’s why I was asking what your goal is.
This is where I constantly struggle. Whilst Jane is a patient model, who never, ever, blinks, she does have shiny skin, which is very prone to developing specular highlights. I take the view that if I get her to look good, then human subjects should follow.
It was this that led me towards using tone curves, which enable me to bring up the shadow side of the face towards the highlight side. Conversely, when I have in the past (incorrectly) used Filmic, the specular side of Jane’s face can quickly become too bright and colourless.
Now that I feel more on track with Filmic, I suspect that I could use some form of curve tool, or perhaps the tone equalizer to even things out when necessary.
I guess that my problem is that I don’t really understand which other modules are compatible with Aurelien’s RGB workflow, which clearly has to be the way forward.
I am also somewhat nervous about using any more modules than necessary, because I have in the past found myself screaming in frustration whilst trying to fix something without realizing that another module was impacting upon whatever I was trying to achieve at the time.
Once again, thank you for your feedback, which is amazingly helpful.
Thanks once again Aurelien. I certainly like the idea of keeping things as minimal as possible.
I’m afraid that I don’t understand your question about my goal. It may help if I mention that I have spent over 40 years shooting portraiture on medium format but have only recently commenced experimenting with digital, which sometimes feels like slide film by comparison. My latest response to Boris may enlighten you further.
It was only after reading about your early work on Filmic that I was persuaded to buy a digital camera and start experimenting. I admire what you are doing and have watched your videos and read lots of what you have written in my efforts to comprehend it all.
I asked what your editing goal was, because depending on the mood you want to set, parameters are not the same (for example, in studio, I usually keep the scene grey at 18% – but that’s another matter if you want to match a bright commercial look).
