Processing for the final image was done in Darktable. Sharpening, base curve, and demosaicing settings all left at default. What I did: Crop to 16:9. Lowered the blacks and raised mids with the Tone Curve. Lowered the exposure by one stop or so. With the Color Zones, I raised the saturation of yellows and reds, and lowered saturation of blues and greens. Raised color vibrance a little bit. Raised color temperature a little bit. Split-toned so shadows are a little purple, and highlights are a little yellow. Added a tidge of film grain. Adjusted local contrast to make details pop, right to the edge of unreal-ism.
What I was going for: I wanted to give this image a “filmic” look. Sort of gritty, but also ethereal. This scene was captured this April in Istanbul. I think these guys were waiting here to find work. It was a grey day, and these guys seemed to all be a bit depressed. I wanted to capture that mood, as I saw/experienced it that day.
So, how effective do you think my processing steps are towards capturing that mood? What do you like about it? What would you change? How would you change it? Any tips, critiques, or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!!
I didn’t do any desaturating of blues or greens, but I did bias the white balance warmer and raise the saturation, on top of adding drama to heighten local contrast a bit.
@CarVac. Cool! Comparing yours, I can definitely see the blacks are crushed too far in mine. I think I like them a little crushed for the look I have in my head, but yeah, the detail is definitely too far gone in the shadows of my version. Also in comparison with yours, I can also see that the skin tones in my version have gone too orange. So I will try to correct some of that and come back with a new version. Thank you for the tips and the new directions to proceed in! It is VERY helphul!
It would improve the first image if you addressed the extreme over-sharpening, and the second image if the skin tones weren’t over-saturated giving them a carrot appearance.
Thank you @Carmelo_DrRaw! I prefer this slightly brighter version. The steps you presented make sense to me, and an especial thanks for the link to the “teal and orange” effect. I think that I was doing something along those lines, but clearly I over did it, at least on the skin tones… I have not tried out photoflow yet, but it looks very capable!
@HIRAM Oh, that looks great! So, you are applying the film simulation from within RawTherapee? I’m rather new to RawTherapee, being mostly a Darktable and GIMP user. How do you go about doing that? Is it one of those HaldCLUT things I’ve read about?
@Morgan_Hardwood Yeah, for some reason RawTherapee is rendering everything way over sharpened for me, and I can’t figure out how to turn it off. I originally wanted to edit this image completely from RawTherapee (as I want to learn it better) but the processed version came out so over sharpened as to be completely unusable. Not sure if I did something wrong or how to fix that…
Yes, I went well overboard on saturation of skin tones. I will be toning that down today!
I think one of the harder parts about approaching the idea of a “filmic” look is defining what exactly that might mean. There’s a ton of different film (cinema) stocks as well as colorists (and DI work these days).
For instance, did you have some sample images of shots that define well what you are wanting to achieve? I find it helpful personally to pull screengrabs from movies that have color timing that I like in order to dissect things carefully. This is particularly important I think when attempting to emulate a particular “mood” or “feeling”.
If you had to describe what you wanted to achieve in one or two images from a film, what would that look like? Can you link a couple of sample images?
@patdavid This is an excellent comment and great advice. I definitely have a “color profile” in my head, and I know it’s been influenced by movies that I’ve seen, but I’ll be damned if I can now recall a specific movie or scene.
I guess, off the top of my head, one film I can think of is “Out of the Furnace”. Here’s an example screen grab (not exactly the scene I’m thinking of, but close):
There are some scenes in that movie that more closely match the sort of depressing mood I’d like to capture. Perhaps also some scenes from the recent movie “VVitch”:
I really liked the cinematography in VVitch. I like that style, but obviously my picture is urban, not rural. So, sort of combine Out of the Furnace with VVitch, and perhaps that’s close to what I’m trying to achieve?
Yes, applying the Hald CLUT is easy in Rawtherapee: access the film simulation section within the colors tab. I did download the library http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Film_Simulation#RawTherapee_Film_Simulation_Collection
expanded it into a folder and pointed to it in settings>image processing
These are also available in GIMP in the G’MIC Film Emulation section.
@HIRAM Thank you! That makes sense. I will download the collection and start playing with it. are they the same as is available from the online Film Emulator posted in the software section? I played around with those the other day, and there are some great things available!
These are just the three that grabbed my attention in a quick run through of the various film emulations available. Of the three, I think I like the Chrome 24 the best. I still prefer the warmth of the final version I got in Darktable, but these film emulators are way cool, and soooo much faster!
