Interesting how some reduce or “straighten” the vertical perspective and some do not …
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These images use gain maps…this is applied generally by default when detected by DT but ART and RT you need to or it is generally useful to go to the flat field correction and check the embedded box…this will relight the image and deals with the strong vignette that these phones have… just a note here incase others are doing smartphone raw edits and using RT or ART
Just loaded into ART…
Then with the gain map activated
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Sorry, not sure what that has to do with perspective adjustment. Please clarify …
Nothing its just when using RT with a smartphone DNG you should enable it. It was triggered by your comment lots of slider waggling… THe gain map will do a tonal correction to the image and give a better starting point that was all …nothing to do with perspective adjustments… sorry if I mis-lead you
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I am on my 13yo laptop, so maybe its just my screen, but when I softproof with sRGB the colors in the signs and box truck were way out of gamut. I used rgb primaries to tame that as well as some modification in color calibration.
I didnt bother trying to use filmic to fix the censor-clipped window sections. There was nothing in them that seemed important (to me). But I did drop the highlights enough that the cross shaped trim would show. I also added some brightness and got some contrast back in the sky with color balance rgb. I didnt mess with the contrast in the brick building enough (it is getting direct sunlight)…but you can probably work that out.
You may need to add saturation/chroma to suit your tastes (I tend to undersaturate relative to everyone else).
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Trying to get more the Google look, I got this:
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The tone equalizer is essentially an implementation of Ansel Adams Zone System .
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Sorry, what is ART?
I think that’s the next thing I need to play with, trying to mask stuff in less obvious ways. It looks great, by the way, thanks.
@priort The second one looks very “Google”, with the dynamic range being very compressed. I’m in two minds about it, because on the one hand it’s like looking at it in real life where your eyes can cope with a huge amount of dynamic range, and on the other it doesn’t look like a traditional photograph.
I’m not criticizing, that is exactly what I asked for! Thanks for sharing your workflow.
Indeed, I’ve experimented with that and find that a little bit of straightening can look good, but for some reason it doesn’t seem quite right if I go all the way and make some of the lines perfectly vertical.
I’ve seen some great photos where there are lots of “perfect” geometric shapes, but I think they have to be a bit abstract to work in my mind.
Thanks, that looks really great. The sky is exactly the right colour and brightness, good amount of contrast. I think I’d do a little more with the windows, but I’ve been struggling to get them even half way to where you are, and as you say the detail of the crosses is there without the highlights going pink or blown out. Overall it looks very natural, I really like it.
I have an LG 4k monitor which I have colour calibrated with an older device (sorry I forget the model, but I used DisplayCal with it, and bought it used from that very branch of Hard Off) so I think my screen isn’t a million miles off. I do use Firefox which I’ve heard can have colour rendering issues, and doesn’t support HDR on Windows. The monitor does have HDR but it’s a joke and couldn’t be calibrated. I have a laptop with an OLED panel and Dolby Vision, but it’s not ideal for editing on. I mention this because it’s interesting what some people say looks natural to them seems a bit too warm for me. Or maybe it’s just that there is an assumption about the time of day that the photo was taken. For reference it’s about 2 PM Japan time in December. Google names the files with UTC time.
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Abother RawTherapee:
https://art.pixls.us
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I am glad you liked the sky. As I look at the overall version I did yesterday, I think I would add more contrast in the windows/sunny side of the Hard Off building (dropping the lights and unclipped highlights some more). This would bring back even more detail in the windows. Using a drawn and parametric mask on “g” to target the brightest values first, then gradually moving the empty triangle slider towards the dark values would be where I start. But you should play around as I might be wrong or you will find a better way! be aware that doing this with any mask might require making adjustments to the rest of the photo to compensate.
I spent most of my time figuring out how to get the colors in gamut (i should have said I gamut checked the photo not softproofed originally) that my eyes adjusted to the contrasts found in the photo before doing some of the tone equalizer work. So the changes I made seemed larger than they were.
For my own photos, the few that I want to really get “perfect”, I always limit how much editing I do at one time. I work a little, then come back hour/days later. I find my perception of things can oftentimes be different when my eyes are no longer acclimated to a certain brightness,contrast,or color cast.
Which segues into your comments about monitors and color temperatures. Our visual system is very adaptive, and sometimes that means that things look “correct” when we have been working but later seem not quite right. For example, I might add a tiny bit of orange-yellow to the highlights in the buildings today because they look a little blue even for a December afternoon.
Even if the light, as you saw it that day, was cold, having a little bit of orange-yellow highlight will help increase the color contrast, and therefore help different parts of the image stand out. And, unless you need things to be as neutral as possible for documentary purposes (scientific research for example), its probably ok to make some artistic flourishes…and everyone has different preferences regarding those flourishes.
My apologies for such a long post. Hopefully you found something in it helpful or interesting. Also, welcome to pixls! I just noticed that you are new (like me) here
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ART is Another RawTherapee. At one time it was forked from RT. Some overcomplicated and repetitive tools were removed to simplify user workflow and allow for faster development. These days ART is its own raw editor.
I like that I can easily get good results without struggling too much. Good colors, tonal range and sharpness come naturally. And if needed there are quite powerful tools available including local editing.
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Thanks for the hint about ART. All I can say is wow, it’s a much gentler learning curve, and also a lot faster than Darktable so it’s easier to experiment with.
ART PXL_20240702_202603386.jpg.out.arp (12.5 KB)
I’m quite pleased with that. The brightness and exposure are about right, it’s got plenty of contrast, and a bit crashed on the black end with an modified S curve that gives it a film look while still preserving the detail in the window reflections. The colour is good too, the sky is the right shade for film.
Thank you so much for all the advice, and for pointing me towards ART. I still have a lot of improving to do, but I feel like I’m on the right path now. I’m keen to go back and re-work some photos that I wasn’t happy with before.
If you are going to use ART for pxl raw files consider applying the gain mapping. Its part of some DNG images and its a big part of cell phone processing…
You turn it on here…for the most part it removes the strong vignette but it also relights the shadows etc…
If you add it you would have to go back and re edit but you might not have to add exposure and some other tweaks once you see it applied…likely it would be something to auto apply to each image…
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Thanks, that’s a great tip, it does indeed reduce the vignette a lot.
I’d advise you to start with Sigmoid, and suggest you watch Boris’s last three videos
Here’s my proposal with Sigmoid,
PXL_20241208_051828478.RAW-02.ORIGINAL.dng.xmp (18.6 KB)
Darktable 5.1 (master)
Greetings,
Christian
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Thanks @Christian-B I really like the look of that. It’s incredibly realistic colour-wise. Mine still looks like it is later in the afternoon, a bit too much red. The sun facing side of the building is lovely and white in yours, and everything else looks just right too. I am going to study your settings carefully, and those videos.
But wasn’t it already later in the afternoon?
The shadows are already quite long. If I look here:
Sun went down on 16:27 in Tokio, so it was just a little more than two hours to sunset.
So I would expect some warmer light and deeper shadows. But I have never been to Japan, so maybe I’m horribly wrong with my assumption.
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Tried a bright look and to avoid the hdr look also
PXL_20241208_051828478.RAW-02.ORIGINAL.dng.xmp (24.4 KB)
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