"Scene-Referred Default" preset in Filmic RGB

[Neutral_Gray]

For a moment, I thought that the current “half-solution” couldn’t be fixed because Aurélien was the driving force behind Filmic RGB. So when I saw that it was already four years after the “TODO” had been marked in the code notes, I thought it was because he had abandoned Darktable.

Instead, the “problem” - or rather my naïveté - goes deeper.

1. My points were already brought up in a pixls thread four years ago:

@garrett

It does seem like filmic probably should automatically adapt to exposure’s setting. I suppose this might be an oversight?

2. The answer was that such a connection between modules would be impossible by design:

@anon41087856

Darktable’s pipeline is designed such that modules don’t care about each other, so filmic cannot get the exposure value from the exposure module and just assumes a flat +0.5 EV. It’s a core design problem that doesn’t have a simple solution for now (except redesigning the pipeline… again).

As a workaround, one user proposed using presets, even detailing the calculation:

@Matt_Maguire

Fortunately, you can deal with this using presets.

But with presets, you either accept having only a small number of values in Exposure that you could choose with this method, or you would need very many presets, the more precise you’d want it to be (e.g. using +1.11EV instead of +1EV).

Question: Is it technically feasible to use a Lua Script to “grab” the current exposure value from the history stack, apply a simple calculation (the current default one, but based on effective exposure) before inserting the values into Filmic’s relative black/white exposure?
This would replace the current 0.7EV dummy value.

I have read numerous reasons why this should not be possible. Still, as one user said, it would provide a starting point:

@alpinist

I know that filmic is not supposed to be automatic, but for sure it would be possible to create an auto mode for filmic that better matches expectations for a default usable result. Filmic would stilll allow the same artistic expression, but it would be easier to process huge batches of boring pictures.

[priort (Todd Prior)]

There is lua code for the auto pickers of filmic and there is also code for exposure picket activate that auto picker I set mine to 50percent on the whole image and the just adjust the selection range later for images where it doesn’t work maybe reducing the amount of sky selected or setting the main subject as the ROI. There is also an automatic mode in the exposure module… Maybe you can cobble together some of those… Have you looked at the initial workflow script? It has code for several of the auto pickers like the time we masks exposure filmic etc