Hi all,
I use Darktable now for a year. I am very pleased with the results i get out of Darktable.
When i expose to the right (ETTR) often in Darktable the histogram is a lot of to the right on the scale presented on my monitor. With adjusting the exposure the histogram will come back within the borders (left) blackpoint and (right) white-point of the histogram screen. My question is: if the actual histogram is not within the max borders presented in the histogramscreen will this lead to problems when printing the image? Do I lose some data needed for printing? In other words the most perfect image is always within the borders of the histogram screen presented on the monitor?
When I use the module " filmic" some of my photographs do look perfect but the actual histogram presented on the monitor are not within the borders of that little histogram screen. Is this not ok?
Getting the image between the borders of the histogram screen I have to adjust the settings of the filmic module like “middle grey luminance” in combination with “black relative exposure” and “shadows/highlights balance”.
So all in all when processing the image is it always the best to have all color channels of the actual histogram within the borders of the histogram screen?
Where can i find some explanation detailed concerning the functioning of the histogram screen?
I am new to all of this but the way I understand it is that when you break the borders of the histogram on the right you are clipping your highlights leaving certain highlights in the photo over exposed therefore you are losing some data. When the shadows on the left are beyond the border you are clipping and underexposing causing some detail to be lost in your darkest points.
The ideal image is where both the shadows and highlights are within the borders leading to proper exposure. It does however depend on the image at hand. Some images it can be really hard to prevent all clipping when having good exposure ie. if you took a picture of a boat and the sun reflects off a chrome railing odds are that is going to clip no matter what you do.
Hope this helps a little bit.
The general idea is when you clip out of the borders of the histogram you are losing detail.
With the filmic module I found that yes as you make adjustments you do need to go back to the other sliders to keep everything balanced.
The strange thing is that the histogram on my camera (fujifilm xt-2) does not indicate some clipping. But in darktable looking at the histogram screen does show some clipping. Aspecially when i do ETTR. Who can explain that difference?
Or is it better to expose for the highlights then doing ETTR?
Your camera’s histogram is based on the jpeg, where darktable’s histogram is the raw file.
So the advise is not to do ETTR?
I have checked the standard actions of Darktable. The basecurve module is activate and does have explosive effect on exposure to the right. How can we disable it?
I think ETTR is generally a good approach. You’d have to talk about specific scenes with a lot of dynamic range to get into other discussions.
To disable the base curve, use the power button, or create a new dtsyle that doesn’t include base curve and set it as the default.
I’d suggest you try filmic instead of base curve. If you don’t like filmic you can try the tone curve.
I do like the filmic module. I’ll disable de basecurve.
You can disable the basecurve in the preferences…depending on your version…