This is a reasonable point. It’s more the “I never use filmic” comment that raised a red flag
So people should use the same thing as you?
Huh?
I don’t understand how someone not using a thing is a red flag?
I would also be interested in @flannelhead’s answer here, since module ordering is certainly not something I feel confident talking about.
I tried a couple different options:
1 & 2: Filmic, with an earlier instance of ‘rgb primaries’ to reduce blue purity, with an instance of ‘color balance rgb’ upping saturation in the highlights, masked to high blue channel. (With the module either before or after filmic)
3: Filmic “sandwiched” between two ‘rgb primaries’, as shown in Petrikas’ tutorial. (Using the first to remove blue purity, and the second to add it back).
4: Sigmoid using the new ‘custom primaries’ section in the module. (Insetting blue, rotating slightly, and using ‘recover purity’.)
To my eye, the ‘sandwich’ approach matches sigmoid the closest, but certainly a matter of taste as to how best to ‘recover’ such blues.
Image credit: @Roger.Wilco from a spooky PlayRaw thread.
Using darktable 4.5.0+893~gac2b7321d4.
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To give some more context
So the flag is that this implies, to me, that using filmic instead of sigmoid involves a cludge with no “warranty”
My understanding of filmic, currently, is that nothing should come after it. It should be the final output module.
Exactly
Yet, replicating this function of sigmoid if you’re using filmic, it is suggested by several people here, involves exactly not doing that
So, yes, I am expressing no doubt premature concern that filmic could end up second fiddle
A caveat again also is saying just filmic there are nuances to v5 v6 and v7 that strongly impact color. Recent filmic wrestles with gamut in a way that v5 doesn’t. So primaries will interact a bit differently depending on version and settings used in the users choices for “filmic”
OK well clearly nobody is going to be able to talk you out of that. I’m not sure what kind of reply you’re expecting. Filmic and tools seem.like they’re feature complete according to their creator. Other modules getting new features doesn’t change that.
Personally like my highlights as the filmic with color balance before filmic, out of the four examples shown above.
Fair enough. I’ve said my piece and either it’s useful or otherwise. I should have phrased my initial interjection as a conditional rather than statement. My bad. Here endeth the sermon. Thanks
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A very good point I neglected. In all of the filmic cases above, I was using v7 color science, with the default hard contrast settings. Given all the options for color science, chrominance preservation, latitude settings, contrast curves, and module order, there’s lots of experimenting to do! (And more test images than can fit in my 2x2 grid.)
@paperdigits: Your comment on module order is also my understanding, that it’s preferable to leave filmic as the last module prior to output. In this case, I wonder if the second instance in the ‘sandwich’-order results in a rough approximation of the inverse matrix step 4 described above? Certainly a question well above my level of understanding.
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I think to an extent it’s really just what you get comfortable with. I for a long time and likely will continue to prefer v5 filmic with color preservation set to no. I like having the latitude and the ability to expand, contract and shift that linear portion, and the ability to saturate or desaturate midtones. I like the way you can pull in blown highlights with a trace of detail using the relative white slider. Sigmoid for the most part washes them out to white. But with sigmoid you get nice colorful punchy result in the midtones. I can get those with filmic v5 so I haven’t used sigmoid much. Recently I did experiment more with it and bumping contrast a lot and using some extreme skew with a couple of local contrast instances I was getting some nice results. I just needed to experiment a bit more. In the end I can get results I like with filmic and still feel like I have a bit more control. This works for me. I am sure an equal case can be made for sigmoid by someone happier with it… Personally I really am happy we have both. I don’t feel that you can say one gives any better result than the other if the user is comfortable with DT and scene referred editing… they are variations on a theme and room and uses for each …
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Thanks for putting this into words, Todd, as this is exactly my experience. That’s why I say that Sigmoid, for me, is good for quick and dirty edits where I just want a punchy result for social media, say. But I find the transitions to white can be pretty harsh. This might just be my incompetence, though the range of control for the module is limited.
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I agree on both these actually. I find (just me personally) that a kind of roll-off (or roll-down?) of highlights in tone EQ works for me, to bring colour and detail back into the highlights. But I think it might be a different style… so personal preferences come into it a lot I think.
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Thanks. I’ll give this a go.
One point regarding my use of sigmoid is that at present I favour rather contrasty and colourful results - a decent (or indecent? 
) contrast boost in sigmoid (in per-channel mode) gets me most of the way there, apart from retrieving highlights.
I’m not at all sure that I mayn’t prefer filmic for the times I want a more subtle approach…
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