Let's do a poll! What's your preferred auto-applied pixel workflow?

[Thad_E_Ginathom]

@mino

Do you know Kofas Sigmoid-Matched AgX preset?

Yes. I’m going to try that. Using nightlies so have it already.

@tankist02

I found filmic is the best for portraits, AgX is for everything else.

With agx you can put peak contrast wherever you want it. face plus a bit of background, or face plus a bit of clothes, gives me a good starting point.

@priort

Somewhere along the line I reset that and dont have that setup right now but I try to work on tone without tonemapping first and then if its necessary

So you would make the picture look right/good without any tone mapper at all?

@patrakov

Filmic (taught first) or Sigmoid (taught second as an advanced topic

Sigmoid as advanced? But Sigmoid (leaving aside the primaries section which I don’t think I’ve used) is the simple one, best for beginners. Which is why, I guess, the installation default is (still?) sigmoid, despite the newer AgX.

[emgaron (Thomas)]

I’ve been dabbling with AgX on and off, but currently, I still reach the look I want faster with Sigmoid, so that stays the default for now. Maybe later this year…

[Terry (Terry Pinfold)]

@Thad_E_Ginathom

With agx you can put peak contrast wherever you want it. face plus a bit of background, or face plus a bit of clothes, gives me a good starting point.

How precisely do you do this. Sounds interesting?

[Dontask]

Went from Filmic to AGX. Followed the AGX build thread here made me comfortable with it and mostly like the results.

[ukbanko (keith)]

Looks like I’ll be the only one using display-referred(legacy)
I know, it’s inferior in so many ways but!
When I first started using darktable around 2011/2012 ish on I think 0.8, it became my first love and you know what they say about your first love.
I used it exclusively until 2015 ish when I bought my Fuji gear. Then it’s been RT and Art which for fine detail has been light years ahead of the rest,
I’ve always enjoyed revisiting my first love and have extensively tested all the new workflows, first was AP’s filmic which made things so complex, then sigmoid, AGX, and the rest.
Then one day a couple of months ago I tried the legacy mode and really enjoyed it, the joy and simplicity of getting satisfactory results, re finding @s7habo soft light illumination with bloom module. In Darktable Tricks - #18 by s7habo which is so good and flexible.
I know I will be the minority but I’m enjoying myself.

[kofa (István Kovács)]

pivot relative exposure moves the pivot (the point of highest contrast, as long as you have an S-curve) to average of the selected region. It also attempts to keep the current output brightness, but there are some UI limitations.

[gwbarn]

@Thad_E_Ginathom

With agx you can put peak contrast wherever you want it.

You can do that with Filmic too.

[mino]

“standard 18.45% middle gray” hah! I always felt like middle gray was a smidge brighter with filmic then with AgX.

[kofa (István Kovács)]

I think that’s quite different, it’s a brightness (output) control, shifting the pivot up/down, if I recall correctly. AgX has that, too, but can also shift the pivot left/right, to select the input tonal value where the mapping curve will have the highest contrast.

[Thad_E_Ginathom]

@Thad_E_Ginathom

AgX… when I have time to put into getting used to it, will probably become my favourite. I’ll use it for my next batch…

Or… maybe not.

After ten images I went back to Sigmoid

@gwbarn

You can do that with Filmic too.

As easily as drawing a box?

Anyway, I have dropped Filmic from my choices once Sigmoid came along soon after I joined the darktable chain. It’s Sigmoid or AgX for me. And Sigmoid wins the Quick&Easy race.

[priort (Todd Prior)]

You might like to check out this…

Christian added to the basecurve module…

He renamed the fork and its available in portable versions for windows so no real risk of any upset to your current version…

He added some interesting color contrast sliders and a second module he has been working on called contrast and texture… anyway just in case you wanted to have a bit of fun and see what you can get out of it as a long time basecurve user…

Release Libre DT-Lab "experimental build" 20260518 ·...

Base Curve Module “Hybrid” & ACES - Like (Proof of Concept)

Hello, Currently stuck in my chair due to a minor mechanical issue ;-), I took the opportunity to finalize a project I started last year. The “Legacy” rendering of the basic curve module has a visual signature that I really liked with my Pentax (*ist, K-r, K-5) cameras. It’s an excellent module, but it was designed for a different generation of sensors than today’s. The goal: to offer the best of both worlds. Total control of the dynamic range and a “cinematic” rendering, without sacrificing …

[thumper]

@ukbanko

I know I will be the minority but I’m enjoying myself.

I was looking for your response, because I wanted to say that I think it is pretty epic that you use the display referred workflow by default.

There is definitely a charm to the display referred workflow simply due to the ease of understanding it: everything can clip everything, so watch out

I was recently working on a DT style to match the default LR settings, and I got very close by using display referred and just the white balance module. The purpose was to allow me to convert some lightroom presets to darktable styles by starting from a relatively similar base. I don’t think I will switch to using display referred (I love AgX), but it was nice to work in it for a while (good memories from GIMP).

[priort (Todd Prior)]

The sigmoid preset for Agx is pretty close in most cases so not to change your workflow but for others reading your comments, that liked sigmoid as well…you can start with that and then move to the control of Agx or mostly leave it… or maybe I have not tried enough images…

[Thad_E_Ginathom]

Maybe I was fiddling too much. And I did produce some, errrm… interesting images. But only nine. In two or three hours!

So I switched back to the comfort zone

[Terry (Terry Pinfold)]

@kofa

pivot relative exposure moves the pivot (the point of highest contrast

Thank you for this explanation. I have discovered that this slider has an important impact on the images contrast more so than the exposure. It this explains the why to me. I actually use the the pivot target output slider to set the final brightness/exposure and the pivot relative exposure as a contrast adjustment.

I find that moving the pivot relative exposure to the right which the picker often does lowers the contrast and I often prefer to reset the slider back to default position.

[ukbanko (keith)]

@priort Thanks Todd for the reply, I followed the “Hybrid and ACES” threads and it was good.
What is good with darktable now, is the multiple workspaces, so you can try all the workflows simultaneous.
But in my dotage I just love the simplicity.
Take care.

[kofa (István Kovács)]

@Terry

I find that moving the pivot relative exposure to the right which the picker often does lowers the contrast

Not in the mathematical sense (the slope of the curve is set by contrast).