I am trying codec Nora on a few images. I wish mine were coming out like yours, but they are not. Darker parts of the images are coming out black for me.
Nora typically creates more latitude on the highlights side of things, with a neutral mid grey. I would try leaning towards over-exposing (similar to what is often recommended for Portra for example).
Also, not all images are created equally in their dynamic range. Some are just naturally going to look really crunched in the shadows, especially if the subject happens to the the brightest thing in the photo (sort of like the boats image)
There’s a brutal toe start value on this preset; judging by the Patreon post, I think it’s necessary to push up the exposure module.
However I’m thinking it’s crushing highlights for me, with only added exposure. They’re hitting a ceiling of about 87.5% on the secretary bird. Should we adjust anything in AgX or use things like tone equaliser or CB-RGB brilliance?
Ok, I completely changed my edits, pushing things to high exposure, then applied AgX with codec Nora. I got a much better result from codec Nora, but I still prefer my hand-tuned first example. Also, to work this way, I would have to completely re-work my editing procedures. I mean, why make everything unreasonably bright because the codec will bring it back down?
Sorry you are dealing with this Tim. When I get a chance I am going to do a bit of a sanity check to make sure a final tweak was actually done.
In the meantime, I have a couple questions:
Are you using the auto pickers in AgX? You should not have to.
How do you typically set exposure? For the highlights, midtones, or shadows? Middle grey should not be affected by Nora, and highlights have a lot of latitude before they get squished, so shadows are naturally going to be squashed more as a side-effect. This naturally means that Nora is better when exposed with shadows in mind.
I occasionally use the auto-picker in Agx, but not often. Checking the sample photo I’ve been giving, I did not use it.
I do not set exposure by highlights, midtrones, or shadows. I usually use the picker for the entire image, then adjust the chosen value to my taste. However, I did not even use the exposure module in the sample image I have been using in this thread. I originally judged the input exposure to be a good starting point.
I gotcha.
A couple more questions if you don’t mind:
Do you often adjust exposure as as you go through an edit? Part of the issue might be that Codec Nora is doing so much in just one module that it is throwing off your natural editing rhythm.
Do you often use tone equalizer or cbRGB’s brilliance section to correct/adjust exposure? If so, the whole “Digital Film Stock” method might take some getting used too. I still reach for tone equalizer now and then to adjust harsh dynamics.
Thanks for sharing the preset to test out. I applied it to this playraw images some of us have used recently. It certainly performs a lot of highlight recovery but crushes the shadows.
No, I almost never readjust the Exposure module as I go through my editing.
I probably use Tone Equalizer with half or fewer of my edits.
Thanks for your attention. I am not trying to be overly critical. I saw the samples you posted and thought, “Wow!” I was hoping your codec could serve as a one-click AgX implementation for my editing. I usually have to fool with the AgX settings a lot to get the looks I want. I am using the principles you gave a few weeks ago. At least I have learned a lot more about the AgX module.
I had another go with your preset but I played around with extra exposure modules, tone equalizer, color balance RGB and other modules to uncrush the shadows. But am not sure if that doesn’t defeat the purpose of your preset? 7C_04669_01.ARW.xmp (24.6 KB)
Here is an example where I think I have had good success with codec Nora, but I still had to fiddle with it after applying the codec. I used two instances of tone equalizer, then color balance RGB to get the look I want.
There is a big offset on the toe start …It could be that rather than try to do several adjustments for crushed shadows…maybe just relax that s bit and see if that is enough…
If you want to use Nora as a DFS strictly, then you could just enable it and then play with exposure to find out where the image sits best. On the other hand, you can always use Nora as a starting point.
In general, I always start with an AgX DFS preset like Nora, and then adjust exposure, pull in tone equalizer if need be, etc.
Yes, certainly feel free to adjust the AgX parameters as you see fit. You can also adjust the contrast in agx to walk back the compression.
With Codec presets, the goal was to make it possible to enable the preset and be done, with a good amount of final contrast without turning to other modules. But this is certainly not always how people want to edit, so feel free to modify the preset to match how you want to edit.
In the coming days, I want to make a video or two showing how I use it in case my communication via text needs help
Another option is to adjust the ‘pivot relative exposure’ slider. That control’s effect is exactly the same as using the exposure module (But you turn it down to get a brighter image). The picker will set the average of the picked region to mid-grey, like the default picker setting in the exposure module. Edit: The ‘pivot target output’ is also lower in this preset so the area selected with the picker will be darker than mid-grey. You might want to manually slide the relative exposure control to the left.
The preset is supposed to have “strong contrast” so the steep toe makes sense to me. I might try reducing the white relative exposure in my examples.
In any case, thanks for sharing the preset!
Hi Tim, and anyone else interested, I wanted to post a quick update. I am working on a new version of Codec that will hopefully result in a more “stable” Nora preset. I think part of the issue was that I was trying to maintain the relationship between the characteristic curves of the source film stock and the final transfer curve in AgX. While I will continue to do my best to preserve the attributes I can, I think my mapping was unecessarily creating bad side effects. Two improvements I am seeing as I work on the new version:
More consistent midrange representation. Previously, the midtones could drift darker or lighter based on contrast adjustments.
Less crushed shadows. Previously, I was pushing the midpoint down the linear output, and boosting with input relative exposure, in order to give the DFS the film-like highlight response, but this was causing shadows to be skewed too much towards target black.
Here is a side by side of the current Nora vs the WIP Nora. The exposure is set pretty dark in order to replicate the overly crushed shadows that @Tim was seeing(I selected the blue top of the lower boat with the exposure module’s picker). While much of the same character is there still, the shadows are less crushed and retain more detail.
NOTE: this is not a change to just Nora, but to my whole system for mapping Film Data to AgX. Once I have this new version solidified, I will update here again with the new Nora preset.
I think this preset is a really good effort.
Love it!
I just tried it on the lakeland tonemapper play raw and I think the result was complimentary to the edit you did there a few days back
Thankyou.
