I’m pretty sure RT is limited to one graduated filter per image… but I’d like to be able to use two or more.
I’m new to RT. I currently use ACR+PS CC to process raw NEF files from a D810 and Ricoh GR files (DNG). Tried RT just to check what was out there in Open Source and was astonished by the quality of it’s raw processing and the depth/maturity of some of its processing tools.
Wavelets and the CIEC Color Model adjustments are standouts. I process both in ACR and PS using the LAB space until the final output stage (to avoid color shifts and to improve the operations of both USM and “Smart Sharpening”). RT seems to offer still better tools for this kind of processing.
I can see that RT hands off to image editors for post processing ‘touch ups’ (e.g. dodging, burning). But I also use a graduated filter/brush in ACR on many images at an early stage of processing to (subtly) refocus and sometimes exaggerate the lighting across the image to help direct the viewer’s attention. Often, this involves two or more graduated filters (ACR has a very flexible options for the gradient including exposure, dehaze, contrast and color temp. but exposure is probably the most important of these).
RT seems to have just an exposure gradient. That’s good. But I’d really like to place more than one per image e.g. in different corners of an image with a central lighting focus. This is much more subtle than using e.g. vignetting (which is often obtrusive).
Has this been considered before? Is it a possibility?
Thank you, Paul. Yes, that was my solution, too, Effective; but a bit of a pain from a workflow viewpoint. The round-trip takes a couple of minutes even on my (maxed out) MacBook Pro.
Hi Peter,
Best is to be pragmatic. Do your initial things in RawTherapee, like demosaicing, perhaps denoising, perhaps other stuff, then send the file as 16-bit to an image processor like Gimp >2.8 where you apply your gradients and/or other things, then export as 16-bit and go back to your image processor of choice to do the rest of the work.
Nothing is perfect in this world but by combining several workflows one might pretend otherwise…
Hi there! bump
Is this “feature request” or improvement still off the table?
Sometimes, instead of fiddling with various curves to manage highlights and shadows (wr/ colour, luminance, contrast, …), it’s just sooo much more convenient to simple draw a few gradients.
The ability to do so would be great.
And I can’t help but share this more recent post about the settings adjustable by the gradients.
“Do your initial things in RawTherapee, like demosaicing, perhaps denoising, perhaps other stuff, then send the file as 16-bit to an image processor…”
For graduated filter: Picture Window Pro 8, a replacement for Photoshop and now donation-free from Digital Light & Color, has a Gradient function for this. The column of image transformations is flexible, so you can do a Gradient, do another one right away or after a contrast change, etc.
ART (fork or RawTherapee) has a number of local adjustments, but it is missing for example CIECAM. But it can do multiple areas with individual settings per area for each of: color correction (includes brightness/shadows/midtones which would solve your exposure question), smoothing, local contrast and texture enhancement.
NewLocalLab variant of RawTherapee can do similar stuff.
ART is adding painted masks and has some other improvements, but also a lot of things taken out.
And of course there is DarkTable which allows many things to be applied multiple times but it works rather differently. https://discuss.pixls.us/search?q=%23software%20tags:art
In newlocallab, I developed a functionality which uses the ciecam algorithm and performs a chromatical adaptation which allows to simulate a WB change (it is not exactly a WB but it seems…). it’s the “same” algorithm you can find in Ciecam02 (Preset cat02 automatic) but with predifined parameters.
You can “warm” or “cool” a part (or the whole picture), and also in “expert” mode, perform a Graduated Filter on chroma
