Your summary notes here are succinct. Bravo to you. A couple of thoughts:
The Output Profile notes are especially welcome. I started to use the ProPhoto profile, but then remembered I don’t use LR/PS. The fall-back recommendation for using RTv4_sRBG is a great suggestion. I’ve wondered which one of these to use in the past, so I’ll settle on this one for now. Somehow, I missed this section when I viewed Andy’s (helpful) video the first time around.
I’ve never gone wrong using the L-a-b color space.
Something you hadn’t mentioned, but is at the top of my list, is to get a hold of a camera profile from Adobe (readily available when you download ACR) and select it in Color Management. Check the boxes for the lookup table and tone curve before you start doing any deep level editing. I’ve been getting much better results from my final image using this method.
Thanks again for making these available. If you don’t mind, I’m going to make them available offline for my own personal use.
I’m sorry but both you and @paperdigits are being extremely obtuse. The context of @Andy_Astbury1 s use of the word standard is perfectly clear.
I know and have patience with people being and thinking differently but this is extremely literal thinking. What some standards document states is completely irrelevant. @Andy_Astbury1 clearly explains that many printers and software fail to handle profiles beyond the “industry standard” profiles he listed.
Now of course that’s a deficiency of those printers, software and perhaps people but that doesn’t matter because they decide if you get to print or sell your work. Naturally there will be geographical and business differences and some may have better support for other profiles. That is however a completely different discussion and is about how much you print and sell and where you do it.
Perhaps, with any luck, we can get back to the OP subject line. @Thanatomanic, can you point to where @Andy_Astbury1 mentions to turn off Dead Pixels? I’ve watched all his RT videos and somehow must of missed that.
Astbury previously recommended this, but no longer considers it a good default setting. These options are in the Raw tab, in the Preprocessing section.
Specifically, Andy has explained (in the comments below the default profile video):
I no longer class [dead pixels and hot pixel filters] as essential - they
only need activating if an individual image needs them. If they are not
needed they could prove slightly detrimental.
To which KuruGDI added:
When I take images with small grained details it’s sometimes degrading
the image quality for me with these settings. The software thinks that
these tiny spots should be fixed while in reality it’s just a small
detail. I could see this problem especially in area that were just
slightly out of focus.
Yep! I use mine all the time. What I meant was, whenever I do a new installation of RT one of the first things I do is extract those profiles for the cameras I use. Well worth the effort. Thanks!
I’m always interested in learning how everyone else uses this fantastic piece of software; I consider myself very experienced when it comes to RawTherapee, but that doesn’t mean I have any idea of what I’m actually doing.
Mind you, the same goes for my photography in general. I was taking a few shots at Pride last year, when a lovely young gentleman (who was rather splendidly dressed up as a shiny pink elephant) rolled up beside me.
“Cool camera!” he said. “Are you a professional photographer?”
“Who? Me?!” I replied. “Gawd, no! The only way I’ll make any money from this is if I pack up, go home, and sell my camera on eBay!”
Thanks for sharing the post with us, @plantarum! Nice work!
EDIT: Nice website, too! — there’s some really interesting topics on there! — I’ll be sure to have a read and add it to my ‘cool websites’ list!
P.S. Sorry for all the edits (again!); I’m typing away on my phone (again!), and the keyboard is so darn teeny-tiny!
This is also the default working profile (NB: not the default output profile!) for RawTherapee. However, by default, RawTherapee doesn’t offer ProPhoto as an output profile.
Please note that the ProPhoto.icc profile has a pure power TRC of 1.8, as per its definition. RawTherapee uses linear RGB as much as possible internally and only uses the ProPhoto primaries, if you select ‘ProPhoto’ as working space. The RTv4_Large output profile uses ProPhoto primaries, but actually uses an sRGB (?) approximately power 2.4 TRC for some unknown historic reason (see e.g. here).
Edit: in other words, it’s a bit of a confusing and complicated mess if you ask me…
For information (or reminder)
The ICC profiles used in output, are composed of 3 parts
primaries (Prophoto, AcesP1, AdobeRGB, sRGB, etc.) with which and the default illuminant (D50, D60, D65 according to the manufacturer) one elaborates a matrix XYZ of conversion to which is applied a chromatic correction due to the difference between D50 and the illuminant (Bradford).
an illuminant - most often D50, D65, D60 which fixes the reference white (Xw, Yw, Zw)
a TRC (Tone response curve) which will determine the visual rendering of the image, ie the balance between the shadows and lights.
This TRC is composed of 1 or 2 parts:
1 single parabolic part: gamma = 1.8 for Prophoto.icc (or any other name it may have), gamma=2.2 for AdobdeRGB.icc
2 parts : Linear up to a certain shadow threshold, then parabolic gamma. There are “usually” 2 settings
BT709: linear until 4.5, then parabolic 2.2. This setting when compared to gamma=1.8 gives approximately the same result in the mid-tones and light, but the shadows are much better treated (removal of the gray)
sRGB : linear until 12.92 then parabolic 2.4. This setting when compared to gamma = 2.2 gives approximately the same result in the mid-tones and light, but the shadows are better treated (removal of gray).
By default in the Rawtherapee process:
the “working profile” does not take into account the TRC, and is therefore not an ICC profile in the true sense. It is a linear XYZ correction
the whole process is done in linear mode (except Lab, but getting into this debate will disturb the subject).
the preview - what we see in output is set with a sRGB TRC: slope=12.92 gamma=2.4
Hence by default, whatever the output profile in terms of primaries (Prophoto = Large in terms of RT, sRGB, etc.), the choice to use the sRGB TRC to have the same shadow/light balance.
Of course you can (must?) make other choices, which may depend on the quality of your monitor, your outputs (printers…). ICC profile Creator allows you to make a profile of your choice in terms of primaries, illuminants and TRC.
The fall-back recommendation for using RTv4_sRBG is a great suggestion. I’ve wondered which one of these to use in the past, so I’ll settle on this one for now. Somehow, I missed this section when I viewed Andy’s (helpful) video the first time around.
