RawTherapee Bundled Profiles

Software RawTherapee
1

I am trying to learn my way around RawTherapee better. Is there any way to “reverse engineer” the bundled profiles that come with it?

For instance, I just opened a picture and applied the “Portrait - Smooth” profile and was very pleased with the results. Though I have been using RT for a while now, I do not know how I’d go about creating the “smooth skin” effect that is in that processing profile. How can I peek behind the scenes of that bundled profile and see what changes are being made to the raw image?

I think this would be a good way for me to learn more about processing in RT. Not just with the Portrait Smooth profile, but in general, if I see an effect that I like in one of the other profiles, I can look through it and see where those changes came from.

2

Look at the values of the tools which are enabled. Toggle them on/off to see the difference.

The main effect of the Portrait - Smooth profile comes from the tone curves (Exposure and L*a*b*), and the smoothing effect comes from the Contrast by Detail Levels tool.

3

Such an obvious answer. I should have thought of that myself. Thank you, though for getting me out of my mental rut!