Images’ brightness will strongly depend on given DR Mode set in the camera.
I start from +1,35 EV for DR100, about +2,35 and +3,35 for DR200 and DR400 respectively.
Note: ISO’s above 1600 are artificial in this camera, so even if you’ve set DR100 and shoot at ISO 3200 or 6400, the camera uses 1600 in fact and compensates in postprocessing JPGs.
When loaded in darktable, such photos will show -1 and -2 EV underexposure, as darktable doesn’t cheat on users and show RAWs as they really are
Anyway, don’t be scared to use “big” numbers in Exposure module.
Edit: darkatble used in v.4.0 • scene-referred + modern color adaptation workflow • filmic v6
How ever many replies you get here will be the number of different default processing orders recommended. As others have said there is no specific right order. However, for my five cents worth. I have made a style setting (see manual for how to do this) that applies denoise (profiled) at the default settings, the demosaicing sharpen pre-set from the diffuse or sharpen module, and the pre-set for basic colorfullness from the color balance RGB module. This I do before using other modules. Then my typical standard steps are:
Set white balance as filmic wants correct color balance
Adjust exposure if required
Try filmic’s auto tune levels (works well on most images, but not all)
Use tone equalizer if required to brighten or darken the shadows, highlights or midtones.
Activate local contrast module and see if it improves the image. More often than not it does.
Since tone equalizer impacts contrast, return to filmic and adjust the contrast slider if needed.
Use other modules as required, but this is a typical start to my work flow.
Hi Andy,
I haven’t tried it myself yet I’m a bit short on time atm, but I would be looking at the sets of chroma and saturation sliders in color balance rgb. It’s amazing how much flexibility there is using these… sorry for the vague reply!
Someone else may have mentioned this already
Similar approach here - my style includes i.a. denoising, best demosaicing possible, custom Filmic parameters + special tweak in Colour Calibration to fix the reds, which by default look too cold & magenta.
For that, remember also that you can right-click on the “exposure” slider and then enter any value with the keyboard, the default maximum of 4EV is just a convenience, since the slider must have a maximum value.
@priort small correction. Both pictures are from XT1. Mentioning A7C I meant that DarkTable defaults seems to be closer to the basic Sony jpeg post processing.
Also, i noticed that discourse converts my raw file into … JPEG (a bit confusing). Not sure how can I apply your sidecar on my RAW file then.
Sorry my misunderstanding…sidecar wont be of much use…I did it on your JPG…so you would need to share the raw file and I and others could demonstrate what we think might help…you can just upload the raw using the post upload icon…
How are you posting?? you mentioned discourse?? It should have no issue if you just create a new post on the pixls.us site and click the little upload button…
Hi Michal,
you mention best demosaicing possible. I do consider this with very noisy images but usually just accept the default. Would you like to share some of your experiences with the different algorithms and which ones you recommend.
I meant discuss.pixls.us is a discourse board. I do use https://discuss.pixls.us . And indeed, I created new topic, attached two files, one RAF and other JPG as found in a memory card. For some reason, RAF is converted to JPG (and since I am not here I did not complain and assumed things are like that). I repeated it like 2 times to make sure it is not user error to no avail.
Looks like compressing the file did the trick (wonder also what is the forum etiquette for large attachments). I did nothing special this time. I did some search and it is probably similar case to Png converts to Jpg no matter what! - support - Discourse Meta
Hard rules are enforced by the forum software (no files larger than 100MB, allowlist of file extensions). Etiquette is posting as small of an image as you need to illustrate your point, since we intend to keep the forum intact for as long as we possibly can. That’s pretty much it.
would be an overkill, but it helps fighting moiré and extracts colour from finest details e.g. in tiny twigs among leaves - my camera itself renders JPEG with the twigs as green as surrounding leaves for example.
Also it is recommended to use high quality demosaicing algorithms to get the best of other modules.
And since my PC is not old enough to be murdered by loading and processing times, I set the above by default
Putting numbers instead of moving sliders. And some presets of course.
