Local Adjustments – documentation & tooltips

@RichardRegal

Wavelet in in RT since a long time… I think 2014…
Of course there are regular improvements

jacques

1 Like

Thinking about the labels for the various mask viewing options, perhaps ‘Show modifications with mask" and "Show modifications without mask’ would be clearer if they were changed to ‘Show modified areas with mask’ etc.?
Any thoughts anyone?

Wayne

Yes which is why I said that if local adjustments on their own would not qualify for a jump from 5 to 6 then what would?

That said how different does the program have to be from version 5.0 before we say it is different enough? Do we just go on with 5.10 having the next major upgrade and how do we stop people confusing it with 5.1.0

Yes please.

Actually it was user error (which is why I edited out the original post). I had forgotten there there three things I needed to enable to get things to work.

No, next step after 5.9 would be 6.0, not 5.10.

I’m not against releasing the next release as 6.0 btw…

I just pushed a change (commit 26f3b5a from localimprov) concerning

  • the forgotten tooltip - Fftw blur
  • the replacement of “Show modifications” by “Show modified areas”

jacques

1 Like

Apologies for long post.

I am trying to use the wavelets (Local Contrast & Wavelets) and have selected wavelets. I am trying to work out how to make an adjustment to (say) wavelet level 8. It is not at all clear to me how I do so, as the controls are completely different from the controls in the wavelets tab. I have activated local adjustments, added a new spot and enabled the spot. (I made it cover the entire picture because that is what I want). I set the scope to 100 to make sure it captures all colours and textures. The mask shows everything is selected. I then added the Local Contrast & Wavelets and enabled that. (In passing I have to say that having to enable three things to get one thing to work is a sure fire way of having people forget to activate one and then post that the tool does not work).

I then select wavelet (as opposed to the default of unsharp mask) but then what? The first tool is local contrast by level. I bump up the attenuation to 2.5 to make sure I can see what I am doing and select linear. On the wavelet levels slider I set the 4 control points so that only level 7 is active. There is no change to the picture when I turn off and on local adjustments. I change to equalizer and I get a graph that somehow shows adjustments based on luminance rather than wavelet and a tooltip that might as well be written in ancient Greek. What on earth is the absicca, what is the ordinate, what does near concept luminance mean and which axis is which? Leaving the line at the default there is no adjustment. I move the line to the top keeping it horizontal. A small change but nothing like the size of the change that I get using the wavelets tab. Interestingly (to me) knocking the attenuation back down to one does not reduce the effect so I am now wondering what the attenuation does. (Also if all I am doing is keeping the line horizontal then why does linear not have any effect.)

All I want do do is mirror the effect of a global control and it is difficult to work out how to do so and even then not completely effective.

So after all that what am I saying? Two things I think.

(a) It would be helpful if the controls for any local adjustment matched the equivalent controls for the global adjustments.

(b) If adjustments are not based on luminance then the graph illustrations should not be luminance based. If they are contrast based then I suggest at the left a box one half in dark grey and the other half in light grey and at the right one half in black one half in white . (If you wanted to get pretty you could have the same as the current luminance but on the left the top half in dark grey and the bottom half in light grey and on the right the top half in black the bottom half in white with a transition). If the adjustments are based on wavelet level you could have a little wave at each end, a short wave for high frequency detail and a long wave for low frequency detail.

So that I am not just complaining without being any help, I offer a translation for the tooltip. I don’t think there is any need to add “near concept luminance” as a clarification for local contrast. I think the tip should say something like “the X axis shows the existing local contrast level and the Y axis shows the change to be made to the local contrast” (assuming my understanding of the control is correct. If that is the case (and I realize this is not a documentation point) I think the default shape for the curve should not be a horizontal line but rather that used for the normal wavelet control as shown in Wavelet Levels - RawPedia. I also wonder if there is any need to have an attenuation level if the equalizer mode is used.

That tooltip was replaced about a week ago and should read:

Low to high local contrast from left to right on the x-axis.
Increase or decrease local contrast on the y-axis

Thanks. Apologies for the rant,and I know this is documentation, but it is frustrating when the controls you are trying to document behave in a weird way compared with how they behave elsewhere.

If it’s any help, the ‘Local contrast by level’ works in the same way as the Final Touchup > Local contrast curve in the Wavelet Levels tab and if I am not mistaken, the local contrast module in ART. The ‘Attenuation response’ slider is also the same in the Wavelet Levels tab and in Local Adjustments. However, it’s not easy to figure out what the ‘Attenuation response’ slider actually does without reading the explanation in Rawpedia first: http://rawpedia.rawtherapee.com/Wavelet_Levels#Contrast_module.

They have no real hints either. The documentation is really mostly about what is in the lower part of the pyramid2 box and does not touch on how to limit the effects to any particular wavelet level.

I wonder in passing whether in some places in the same section the word level is used to refer variously to wavelet level and to local contrast level without making clear which is meant.

Keeping a clear distinction between wavelet levels and levels of contrast was one of the problems I had trying to translate the Wavelet levels documentation. The text is still far from perfect though and could do with a rewrite at some stage.

@jdc , looking at this it would probably be a good idea to change the curve label ‘Local contrast by level’ to simply ‘Local contrast’ in Local contrast & wavelets>Wavelets>Local contrast. The tooltip is clear but I agree with @RichardRegal that the slider name is confusing. I suspect I was responsible for asking you to change it in the first place :frowning_face:

Wayne

Change done :slight_smile:

1 Like

But let’s not be mistaken. The curve, even if it is unique, will have a different action for each level of decomposition.

For each level of decomposition we analyze the local contrast, positives and negatives values, distribution according to the local contrast, from low, to medium, and high.
I use a principle of analysis of this distribution which has nothing to do with a Gaussian distribution. Nevertheless I use some tools to model its shape (always by level)
I calculate the average of this distribution and the standard deviation (recall it is not Gaussian, but allows the modeling)

As a function of these values, the x-axis briefly represents for each level the distribution of the local contrast. The middle representing the average value.

Some usual values of local contrast per level, in positive and negative

  • minimum near zero
  • mean about 300 to 700
  • standard deviation about 200 to 800
  • maximum about 5000 to 13000

And recall, this curve have nothing to do, or to compare with tonecurves

jacques

I’d love to try this out! Been waiting some time, for this. Does anyone have macOS builds?

In the ‘Log Encoding’ module of local adjustments there is a very long description that makes my left panel cut off as indicated. See if it can be shortened, please. Maybe it would be worth leaving it as:
‘Calculate the dark-Ev & white-Ev’
Thank you.
Version: 5.8-2609 windows

I have change the label length :slight_smile:

jacques

Merci! :+1: