RAW sharpness with darktable

Todd,
When I open 3 of your sidecars I get a strange effect at the edges:

I see it on 03 and 04 also.

Edit: It comes from lens correction.

I found this too, ie that much of the look of the RT edit came from the CBDL that seemed to have the largest impact…there were two tone curves also that I tried in a couple of edits to roughly mimic instead of using filmic…

I saw it in one preview. I didn’t notice it in the others. I thought it was a preview artifact…I guess not

I tried manually selecting the same lens, and that cleared it up.

Hello,
all your efforts are helpful, thank you for that. Many technical terms I do not understand (yet). So I can always learn something new.
Yes, MarcoNex said too much sharpened for a portrait, I can’t disagree with that.
But I still notice that RT is more delicate with the skin, doesn’t make it so rough, less contrast in the details - and yet it makes the hair so crystal clear and fine that the viewer’s eyes have something to hold on to. I find that very good, very pleasing. It makes the image look more realistic, more spatial, more real, more real.

Yes, the color: I’m having a hard time getting the same coloration in both examples. This is mainly due to my lack of experience. I just find it strange that DT and RT show different colors, even if I enter the same Kelvin number in the white balance or set both to daylight or preset the value of the camera. Is this normal?
But, please do not forget: I am 100% satisfied with RT and don’t miss anything. I just wanted to try DT and find that I like the sharpening much more with RT.

Yes, the Capture Sharping is really very good. I just turned it off and used Shaprening Unsharp Mask: Also good, but not quite as. Then Shaprpening RL Devonvolution: Almost even better, maybe a bit too much of a good thing: The whiskers still come out much better, but the first artifacts are already visible in the skin.

Interesting…

I had more iterations in diffuse and cut back some. Aesthetically, I like the degree of sharpening in this effort:

dt 3.7
iBb_08.RW2.xmp (16.2 KB)

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I believe rl deconvolution and capture sharpening both use deconvolution methods, so you would apply one or the other, not both. When I’m in rt I usually combine capture sharpening with contrast by detail levels and that is enough for any situation.

CLBD is a nice module…very easy to use and introduces a nice effect. I have always revisited RT from time to time whenever I got stumped in DT. I then found ART and its compressed tool set and some unique features had me use that instead of the expansive dialogues of RT but when I go back to RT I see that tools that I thought were more or less identical are not in all cases. For me one is sharpening. I thought both used RL convolution and I think they do however the one in ART has less sliders and maybe its just the limited images that I have tried but the one in RT seems a bit better at least when using the defaults. Also not paying attention I thought output sharpening and capture sharpening were version of the same tool but they are not either. I love the masking in DT but some of the tool in RT are very nice.

Yes, that is also my experience: capture sharpening and contrast by detail levels - only these two, that is enough and is unsurpassed the best for me.

with your version, the skin is pleasantly soft. However, sometimes I find it better if the hair is shown clearer and sharper, that gives the viewer’s eye more hold.

what is CLBD for a moudul and in which software can it be found?

Transposed should be contrast detail by levels

Well, it’s me too - as much as I appreciate the Filmic RGB for some cases and the vast knowledge of its author, carefully crafted basecurve still holds much better results for my taste and it seems to be more gentle to highlights, even prettier blending those clipped regions with the rest of an image.

So I greatly hope that basecurve module will never be deprecated and removed from darktable :pray:

Basecurve-view-1

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It will never be removed, but its workflow is not the default anymore.

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Sounds good to me :grinning: I understand scene-referred is future proof and piece of great science, although I like base curve so much :wink:

How about this?

darktable-3.7.0+649
iBb_09.RW2.xmp (24.1 KB)

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Hello Underexposed Bill Martz,

with your version, the skin comes out very soft and tender - it’s very pleasant. But look at the whiskers: they are also very soft, already really blurred - that’s not unpleasant either.
Because of this discussion, I will seriously think about how much sharpness a picture needs. Especially with the small MFT sensor, I sometimes want more of it than the camera delivers. Also, with this portrait, you can definitely think about blurring as well. Not every old man needs to be shown crisply sharp.
With this request of mine, I wanted to know if experienced dt-users can sharpen the photo as well as I can with RT without any problems.
My impression so far: No, RT is clearly better at the moment. So I will stay relaxed with the program I have been using for years: RawTherapee.
Since I have never missed the masks so far, there is no reason to change for the time now.
Thank you all for your commitment.
Micha

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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