Is there a recommended order in which user's should manipulate different modules?

Software darktable
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I’m using what, I think, DT refers to as “Scene Referred Workflow”. The user manuals describe the order in which processing modules are executed when processing a raw file. However, what the user needs to do is make adjustments to the various parameters associated with the processing modules. This particularly involves making judgements about the affect that those adjustments have on the picture being developed as seen on the display monitor. While I think there is no specific order which must be followed when doing this I’m inclined to think that the order that the user follows when adjusting parameters is not related to order that modules are executed in the pipeline. Furthermore, it also occurs to me that this order might very well differ based on the kind images being developed.

I would love to find some documentation that explains the workflow that the user should follow verses the workflow as applied by DT.

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@ajax

Is this a mistake, or is it intentional? You’re on the Rawtherapee forum, not the Darktable forum.

The issue is complex and goes beyond “Scene Referred Workflow.”

Rawtherapee’s design is quite different from Darktable - not better, not worse, but different.

Can you confirm that you’re looking for clarification on the pipeline and the recommended order of the various modules/tools in Rawtherapee? If so, I’ll offer my perspective. But that won’t be possible in five lines.

Of course, this will be my point of view, which is debatable.

Jacques

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Yes! Definitely my mistake. Is there a way for me to move the topic to Darktable or do I need to create the same thing as a new topic for Darktable?

Sorry about that, my apology!

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The edits are applied in pipeline order, so if you change modules near the top of the pipeline, then adjust something at the bottom you may have to go back and adjust the modules at the top because the input changed.

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In my view I don’t feel the need to follow a very strict order for using modules. I also use a lot of displayed referred modules and don’t try to limit myself to scene referred modules.

For me the big difference between scene referred and displayed referred is the fact that they come before or after the tone mapper. So if I use a module such as tone equalizer late in my editing steps I might revisit my tone mapper which is usually AgX for me. I then reset the white and black relative exposure because of the changes made by tone equalizer are applied by DT before the tone mapper.

Now with a displayed referred module such as shadow and highlights the adjustments are after the tone mapper so I have no need to revisit the settings in AgX.

If using filmic, which I no longer do, I am aware that noise can affect the auto adjustment pickers for white and black relative exposure so reducing the noise early was essential for me when I was using filmic. I haven’t noticed this issue since switching to AgX or Sigmoid.

This is not possible in my view. I feel if you asked 100 DT users what their standard workflow is you would get 200 different answers, because even as a single user I have more than one standard workflow. It depends on the image.

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I did have the idea that all images are not the same and that likely would be a factor. In my case the files are generally landscapes. In that, no people. I have found that photos of people limit possibilities as it is important that they look real. Whereas on landscapes the goal, at least for me, is to produce artistically appealing prints rather than authentic renditions of the actual scene. You have a lot of latitude on many of the modules.

I do set the camera to expose to the right which has the effect of starting with extra light. I almost always find that local contrast provides minor improvement and typically do that last with sharpening if, used at all, to come just before that.

My post was predicated on the idea the people with lots of experience that author various kinds of documents might be able to offer reasoned ideas why particular methods are better than than just random choices. That idea leads me to think you might be one of those people and I do appreciate your response. Also sounds like I was looking for something that simply does not exist.

Many thanks for the feedback.

BTW, the versions of DT I’m still using don’t have Agx, whatever that is. I’m following the advise provided in User Manuals to prefer scene referred which more or less insists on using filmic rgb as I understand it. One of these days I suppose I’ll catch up to Agx.

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David, I think each person will have their own approach to looking at the image. During that exercise there will be people trained to actually artistically and technically analyze an image and then decide where they are going to take it and others that don’t really have an idea and just want to experiement and see what they can come up with…Between those extremes are the rest of us :slight_smile:

Some edit very technically and others with more whimsy and artistic flare.

Nevertheless, that raw capture is just that a canvas of light values captured at the scene with nearly limitless possibilities.

I think composition is often overlooked and very important and it might indicate what sorts of lighting and color changes you add. The exercise of analysing the image to at least make some basic decisions about what you would like to improve or alter/enhance is another key starting point.

From this you will get a recipe after some time I think about how you approach things exposure, then white balance, then dealing with tone then color grading, then handle noise sharpness what ever becomes comfortable for the user…

The next job is to become familar with the tools, the blend modes, masking and see what you can do with each so that you can have a toolkit at your disposal to shape the image to match or approach your vision.

Darktable defaults to using a tone mapper but many images can be worked with the tone eq, rgb colorbalance and a few other module as there is no need for tone compression and consequently you can sometimes avoid unecessary artifacts and compression. I leave the tonemapper disabled until I correct the exposure and then i look at where the image stands… this is just me others will have a different initial approach…

Many people are stuck on matching and achieving a better version of the jpg…treating the raw file as a “super” jpg when in reality its just the light capture from the scene and the jpg is just one version of the image, the one that comes from the camera manufactuer’s recipe.

Some are obsessed by the right or “correct” tool to apply and when and how to apply it as if there is a strict and correct recipe. There are certainly techincal things to be aware of as you edit and there can be some reasons why things execute where they do in the pipeline but the tools are all there and if you can apply them to your benefit then go for it…

@ArekHalusko shared some photo’s not so long ago and they are amazing. At that time he shared that he was still using 3.x of darktable and the old global tonemapping module etc etc, yet his photos thus edited and produced created some truly amazing landscapes.

Others with all the latest and greatest tools, including myself can’t match those sorts of edits, so it’s often less about the tools used and more about driving the pixels with whatever tool or workflow you come up with to get consistently good results…

Certainly, the manual is a great reference and its a good thing to confirm how certain features work in DT but I don’t think it ever made anyone a better editor…

I would just practice and experiment and push things to see what you come up with…

If you wanted to see some decent DT landscape edits that show some theory and demonstrate the various DT tools you could check out the Darktable landscapes YT channel…He shares a lot of various approaches, tip and demonstrates a significant number of DT features while editing landscapes…

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sequence depends on you system resources. If you have a very fast system, you don’t need to care about a sequence.
If not avoid doing performance demanding tasks (like diffuse&sharpen module) before you’re done with the modules before them in the pipe.
If you can’t avoid that, the do the required settings and then disable them first and re-enable them once you’re done.
darktable tries to avoid processing the of the whole pipe if just modules later in the pipe are modified.

Have a look at the videos of Boris (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnkphET6pYk&list=PLmZmCIhOC2Frt6Wq3gc0-egOy_P1sXjau) to get an idea on how to use darktable.

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I apply local contrast as an initial module because it influences the look of everything (especially contrast). That is one strong recommendation I have.

I also apply denoising and sharpening as initial edits because my computer is fast enough not to be slowed by those modules. On an old clunker of a computer I would apply at the end to save resources.

In my personal view AgX is so much better than filmic. I even preferred sigmoid over filmic. Just my opinion and others may still prefer filmic, but not me.

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If you do upgrade to AgX this link might prove informative. Andrew provides the required image to work through his demonstration for his recommendations.

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Per Todd, I think I probably fall into the artistic flare category. However, I am trying to avoid creating technical flaws. When it comes to the idea that “Darktable defaults to using a tone mapper” I’ve also noticed that in my now quite old 4.6 User Manual it says the “tone mapping” module has been deprecated. Some time ago I was persuaded to start using “color balance rgb” (CBR) as a substitute for “contrast brightness saturation” (CBS) which I pretty much used all the time. While CBR has lots more capability it is also much more complicated to apply.

I certainly agree that the referenced photos are remarkable. My site can be found here. Not everything was developed with Darktable but most were. Also, once I get the photo developed in uncompressed .tif format I typically use GIMP for other alterations (i.e., cropping, resizing, scaling, format conversion, adding borders and text),

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Per Terry, I will give it a try. However, if you apply it early in the pipeline then I guess when you want to judge the effect you have to toggle it on and off when you are otherwise done in order to judge whether or not the affect is positive.

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I cannot say that I really like the way “filmic rgb” works so I will look into it.

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My computer are not real powerful. I have noticed that Boris seems to have done some good and worthy videos. Will take a look. Thanks.

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Personally, for a host of reasons I would update to the latest version of DT. There are a multitude of bug fixes and lots of new features, including capture sharpening and the aforementioned AGX. I think you would really like it…in fact even sigmoid would really suit your photography from the images you shared. Those images are really great captures but for me many are a bit crunchy and the clouds are often a bit blown…both sigmoid and agx will give you wonderful transitions in your skies. In no way a critisism, just an observation from my point of view which is just that mine.

When your image is needing a boost try the relight preset in the tone eq…then slide the exposure comp slider in the module if needed or just tweak the curve a bit…this can be a great intial adjustment to an image that is a little dark or has a lot of shadow… Perhaps share one or two of your images with requests to highlight the use of AGX and the tone eq might as this might show you the promise of introducing them to your editing.

In addition to the DT landscapes channel which I would rate as a must watch (based on what you shared) I would also check out @nwinspeare His Dabble in Photography YT channel has some very great videos that are a nice mix of technical explanation and demonstration…

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The tip for selecting the area that needs most contrast is very valuable to me. Also measuring white and black points.

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I use to use the Tone Mapping module for quite a while. I managed to re edit lots of those images not using it but there are some that I just can’t get the image to look as nice as when the Tone Mapper is activated.

I did notice Local Contrast has HDR local tone mapping preset. That one can be handy but had to be adjusted a bit so that images don’t look so flat.

The Tone Mapping module can do some weird artifacts things around edges of mountains and those seem to get even more itense when sharpening with Diffuse and Sharpen or Contrast Equalizer modules.

I don’t really print so as long as it looks good on screen I use whatever module in DT to get the edit I want lol and I have no desire to be a colour science geek just to have to edit photos.

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Hey it’s about results and you seem to get very nice results indeed… I really enjoy your subject material and compositions as well…no editing would make up for shortfalls there… :grin:

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I’ve never been one to follow any editing procedures unless I really have to learn something at first and need to follow a step by step tutorial.

New user of DT shouldn’t worry about it too much but yah it can be a bit intimidating having 50 modules to choose from. Either lean by smashing buttons and moving sliders to see what happens or follow tutorials then do your down thing, its not a life and death situation so go small or send it.

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I believe I stopped counting at 68 modules. That is why I create my own module layout with the modules I tend to use. But I will never complain about choice.

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