Proposal for updated Filmic curve parameterisation in Darktable

[PhotoPhysicsGuy (Bob)]

@anon41087856

It’s more about being pleased with the resulting image than with the solution.

I’ll give you a quote on this from yourself from the sigmoid thread:

@anon41087856

@jandren

How do the black and white pictures look to you? Good? Bad? Why good? Why bad? Etc.

Here is the thing : I don’t care how it looks and neither should you. “Looks good” belongs to amateur empiricism, unless you are Kodak and can conduct extensive aesthetic studies with N > 100 in controlled conditions. Because it looks good on some pics doesn’t guaranty it will look good on all pictures. And also, looks good to whom ? Let’s ditch that thinking.

The design goal is a ‘pleasing’ result and empiricism is suited as one of many testing priciples. Sure, it’s prone to breaking at some point. That’s why machine learning is only as good as the training dataset.

@anon41087856

For fuck’s sake, this is designed to ensure C^2 continuity over the full range while having a control over the rate of convergence toward the bounds, nothing more, nothing less. And there is an alternative with 3rd order curves. How many times do I need to repeat myself ?

Again, I know and understand why it is there, you do not have to explain this.

@wpferguson

If you have an idea, and you think it’s the next best thing, then fork a copy of the code, code your solution, test it with thousands of images and document what it does and how well it performs. Then present it and show what problem it solves that filmic doesn’t, or how it performs better on a certain class of images.

But this is what people actually do/did, no?