Lockable Color picker?

Would it not be very useful if RT had a color picker/pipette that we could lock onto a certain spot, so that we could follow the change in Lab/RGB values while dragging a curve or altering other parameters?

As a good example, see Darktable’s elegant implementation of this function.

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Yes, there’s probably already a feature request for this in github, but nobody’s working on it.

Off hand, I can think of three main groups of RT users:
Those who…

  1. … want to make their developed raws look like the camera’s jpegs.
  2. … would like the result to be true to what the sensor picks up.
  3. … shoot something having the colour of, say, PMS300 (that’s the old Volvo blue), and would like the result on screen or print to be quite close to that.

I belong to group 3, and that is why I am in favour of a lockable colour picker.

Yes, that would be very useful for fixing skin tones, just as an example

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hi Marco, how would that work, please? I’m thinking skin can be all sorts of tones, and I should probably just trust my eyes. I can see the value if you want Volvo blue. Andrew

Hi Andrew. That could work indeed. RawTherapee already has some sophisticated functions to detect skin tones which you can use with some tools to target or protect skin tones. @jdc spent a lot of time for this functionality and it works quite good :slight_smile:

Ok, so what might you actually do? - just trying to visualise a process… So you’ve opened a raw, picked an important area of skin, can see the Lab values, now you make some adjustments to the picture overall. Referring back to the sample, you see the lightness has changed, fine, but also the hue somewhat. Is this the kind of scenario? And if so, what might you do next? Put the hue back to what it was originally with say the Equaliser using the “HH” function?

It would be useful to be able to pick any point in the image and see the R, G, B, L*, a*, b*, Ch, etc. values of that point while manipulating some curve.

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Yes, and this not only for one pixel but the ability to specify a spot radius over which the measurement is averaged.

Hermann-Josef

@RawConvert It may sound odd, but according to last week’s news, your skin tone matching and my PMS300 needs actually can be combined: Zlatan (a Swedish football player) has just signed a megacontract with Volvo. Wouldn’t it be nice to give him a Volvo blue skin tone? :innocent:

oh no…

Ahhh, I would love to use Raw therapy but without this feature I simply cant. And that’s a shame, because in every other aspect it seems far superior, but its missing this essential tool.

If anyone from RT is reading this please consider adding this feature. It may seem small, but for anyone working in 3D rendering and texturing it is truly essential. I have to say this is one tool where Adobe got it right. Really we need many samplers to see changes in multiple areas simultaneously.

With the addition of this tool RT would be the clear choice for anyone working with texture for rendering. But without it, we simply cant use it at all…

Ohh, also in the navigator it would be nice to be able to chose whether the RGB values show as x/255 or as a percentage. the 255 system is preferable for many.

Really hope this feature gets added.

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Hi PhilipB,
I agree with the first part of your post (of course :-]), but not with the last part (see separate reply to your 255 system posting).
Also: have you noticed how Darktable has solved the Color picker feature?

hey,

No, Im on windows. how did they accomplish it? Im a fan of the photoshop integration where results can be shown as 32-bit float, 16-bit, or 255 RGB, regardless of actual working bit rate. Very helpful.

replied to the x/255 rgb issues in the other thread…

Even if you are on Windows, you can enjoy Darktable &c. This computer is a Win 7/64-bit machine, but thanks to VM Virtualbox I can run any Linux version on it as well, and thus use DT.

Here is how DT handles colour picking.

Ohh, thats nice.

I especially like being able to chose where in the tool chain the sample is taken from. Looks even better than photoshop, thats for sure.

darktable doesn’t allow that (unfortunately).

Just wanted to give this thread a bump see if maybe one of the RT team might have time to chime in and let us know if this feature might make it into the next release…

Fingers crossed on this one :slight_smile:

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Unlikely unless you send a patch.
Persistent color picker tool / Lockable Color Picker · Issue #1812 · Beep6581/RawTherapee · GitHub

By patch do you mean essentially code it myself?

Thats a shame. Is that because its a low priority or for some other reason?