It has a process of developing photos at the very end of the overall processing of the material + Gamma processing converted to linear rgb (Switchable for any node.) - very good quality pictures are processed.
But, as priort said, I want to put the brakes on the discussion of davinci resolve. Although the program is free (with limitations), but it is not open source software.
1 Like
The simplest explanation is that after filmic or basecurve adjustments, the scene is no longer about recovery but creativity for display and enjoyment. Before that, it is more about readying or processing the image and working the light ratios.
A few people do…there are several YT video’s and they also show how to set up the project so that your images are stills and not clips and there are a few other settings…but unless you pay for it you are restricted in resolution and some of the tools, NR etc…
This was not directed at you…just a note to inform the new user that posted in your thread…
Its fine to compare and contrast and to bring your knowledge base up to speed and to share…IMO
As for filmic…I always find this graphic shows its role…
And you can use the curve display in filmic but this neat one that Aurelien added sort of helps to visualize this process and the settings…
Our cameras capture linear data. Problem is, our screens do not have the same dynamic range as our sensors, they have less. In order then to make our images look ‘correct’ on screen, we must apply a curve, also known as a tone mapping operation. It basically compresses the dynamic range of the image. If we don’t do this, our images typically look dark or flat on screen (to mimic this, shoot with ‘flat’ or ‘neutral’ profile in your camera jpegs, or just open darktable and turn all modules off except for white balance in your raw files). The old display referred method, and similar to what most software does, was to apply base curve early in the pipeline, and do whatever other adjustments you wanted after. Problem is, as soon as you apply a curve, you are applying a non-linearity, meaning all adjustments after are no longer happening on linear data. So the new scene referred method is to apply the curve late in the pipeline (last if possible), to allow other adjustments to happen on linear data before hand. That curve is provided in filmic RGB (‘contrast’ in the ‘look’ tab). So yes Filmic RGB expects linear data as input, but of course, in applying a curve, its output is non-linear. Alternatively, you can use either base curve or rgb curves instead of filmic, and just move them to the end of the pipeline. But filmic has the added benefit of of being able to bring back data you have previously pushed out of range. What does this mean? Display referred modules tend to be bounded. That means their range is 0-255, and as soon as you push data outside that range, you clip. Once you clip, the information is gone. Scene referred modules are unbounded. Meaning you can push data outside the 0-255 range, and bring it back in range using other modules, without clipping. This is the purpose of the white and black relative exposure sliders filmic ‘scene’ tab. So the new workflow is to start by boosting exposure until your focal point is middle grey, without worrying about blowing the highlights, then use the white and black relative sliders in filmic to bring the data back in range, and adjust the filmic contrast, which creates an S shaped curve pivoting around middle grey. (If you haven’t already, go to your preferences, and in the ‘processing’ tab, ensure ‘auto apply pixel worfklow defaults’ is set to ‘scene-referred’)
The other aspect to working on linear data is to perform operations in a linear colour space. This is achieved in the ‘working profile’ part of your input color module.
The article is a bit old, a lot has been added since. The basic modules to use in the scene referred part of the workflow now (in pipeline order):
*White Balance (just set it to 6502 k and 1 tint for all pictures)
*Exposure
*Tone Equalizer
*Color Calibration (use this for your actual white balance. It also has as channel mixer.)
*Blurs
*Diffuse or Sharpen
*Color balance RGB
*Filmic RGB
Generally speaking, your detail orienated modules like highlight reconstruction, denoise, lens correction, crop, rotate and perspective, retouch, hot pixels, chromatic aberrations, etc… are all ok to use too.
You can still play around with the lab modules, but they are not part of the linear workflow, so its typically best to place them after filmic in the pipeline.
Basecurve has been moved…
And the lights won’t get so flat if the image was originally a little darker. Of course, I understand that the filmic rgb will pick up the picture after exposure, but still.
We’re talking about a separate exposure module and working in it to filmic rgb, aren’t we?
Boost exposure using the exposure module.
If you increase the exposure even more, the light will collapse even more. Despite all the beauty of the idea of a linear gamut))
The detail in the lights will remain when we work with the filmic tool, but it will be something with something)
Sure, but there is no free lunch. The dynamic range must be compressed for our display one way or another, so something must suffer. Typically the mid tones are more important than highlights, and this method is best for mid tones. If you want to see details in the shadows, this method is also better. If highlights are most important in your image, then either don’t boost exposure so much, or use one of the other curve modules instead of filmic. Alternatively, you can apply some local contrast, or other tricks, to the highlights to make them more contrasty.
So, yes, it’s up to each person what to prioritize. For lights, for shadows, or halftones.
In a dispute is born truth, in short 
I often try to edit with only tone eq and not filmic lately when I. want more detail in the highlights…I’ll use at least 2 and often 3 or 4 to manage compression and contrast…I couple this with the dehaze preset in Diffuse and sharpen which I love and some color balance work on color saturation and grading
)))
For some reason the first day of working with DT I used only this tool (tone eq).
Why, I don’t know))
Boris has a nice video on using it and maintaining details…His editing moments thread that is tied to his channel with the same name is a long thread but worth scanning and his videos are some of the best DT content you can invest your time in…esp the ones from the last 18months or so
Boris, good day.
Can you tell me a video, in which you talk about the different nuances of working with tone eq?
Thank you.
1 Like
This is a good thread for filmic
And this is an amazing archive…
1 Like
Indeed if one sets the preserve details to no in tone equalizer it becomes just another type of tone curve. Interesting approach.