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 
Wayne
Change done 
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
jacques
Merci! 