How do I get RawTherapee to do absolutely nothing?

[Thanatomanic (Roel)]

@DAP @troodon Please consider whether your comments about using Film Negative would be better suited in the appropriate thread: Any interest in a "film negative" feature in RT ?

@DAP

When processing negatives, the White Balance tool should always be set to the values of the backlight. Simply make a shot without a negative, set the Neutral profile, use the color picker, readout the Temperature and Tint and apply that to your negative image

I don’t understand why you would want to do this.

@rom9 Can probably explain better, but this is the recommended procedure. I believe this is because your negatives on film have been shot with a different illuminant than you use when digitizing them. You want to compensate for the latter by taking a shot of your illuminant only and setting that as the white balance of your image and then use the Film Negative tool to pick/set the white balance of your negative.

@DAP

As to point 5, I am using the RGB light source to normalize the ADC values of the R, G, and B sensors in the camera through unexposed film to near full scale in an attempt to maximize the color resolution captured.
My goal is not just to get nice jpeg copies of the film images, but to capture as much information as possible from the original negative in the raw file for archiving.

I understand now. Can you share a file where you only shot through unexposed film?
I assume the second image you shared contains a completely uncovered area on the right? These are completely clipped to the limit of your sensor and therefore cannot be used for white balancing (neither in the White Balance tool or the Film Negative tool). As per the described procedure where you need to know the white balance of your light source, this makes it much harder to get good results easily.

Edit: I forgot to mention, but your images so far look extremely pink. This makes me wonder what is going on, because other negatives shared on this forum that I’ve seen were never that off-colour.