Scene-referred editing with PhotoFlow

[Elle (Elle Stone)]

@Elle

In the OCIO workflow, does “scene-referred image file” mean the intensities in the image file are equal to the scene intensities?

Or does “scene-referred image file” mean the intensities in the image file are proportionate to the scene intensities, which would allow exposure compensation and changes in white balance?

@anon11264400

Yes.

The two aren’t terribly different though.

I think maybe you didn’t understand my question, or maybe I didn’t ask the question clearly enough.

Consider two photographs:

• A photograph of the sun taken on a clear summer day at a latitude of roughly 45 degrees (as an aside, hopefully nobody does this without taking suitable precautions).
• A photograph of a flame emitted by the typical birthday cake candle.

If one is scaling the image file intensities to equal the intensities in the actual scenes, the photograph of the sun will require a hugely greater scaling factor than the photograph of a candle flame.

If one is scaling the image file proportionately for some specific technical or artistic reason, then after scaling (and by wildest coincidence possibly even before scaling) the maximum intensities in both files might be exactly the same.