Slope based, Log encoding, Sigmoid, Dynamic Range, TRC - gamma slope , Abstract profile, etc.

Most of my early career was spent avoiding math. Didn’t go to university right out of high-school, in part due to a bad trig experience. Later, searched out an “easy” technical university degree the US Air Force would accept for a pilot-training-destination university scholarship; found a bachelor of science in business that had two math courses, Air Force classified it as ‘technical’, so 'ere we-go! I eventually ended up with three degrees in computer science, four math courses total. It can be done… :crazy_face:

This later caught up with me in my final job before retirement. Actually, it started in my doctorate, where my dissertation chair told me in a convene that, “Gee, I think the particular knee in the curve you’re looking for is the second derivative.” Spent two weeks re-learning derivative calculus from that last chapter in the business math book, re-working my data, couldn’t find that correlation. Went to the next convene to report that, he goes, “huh, I think you’re right.” Damned him… :laughing:

But the last job was about a ballistic missile, and all the ballistic things they do. So Taylor Series, something I’d never had in school, and all the different ballistic propagators out there, even coded up some to make a toy 3D modeler. Interesting, but learning a particular math thing when my algebra chops were shit was a bit frustrating…

Further have recognized my lack of math chops here, wrapping my head around the technical aspects of photography. I find it interesting that so much reliable math has been divined from what is basically a subjective human behavior, color interpretation. Even then, there’s a lot of “good enough for gov’t work” acceptance of results in the genre, proved that to myself measuring camera spectral response with cheap wood-and-cardboard devices, and getting within 1 dE of “lab grade” measurements.

Can’t seem to find a hobby where math doesn’t eventually chase me down. Recently re-engaged my old model railroading hobby, hey, what could be simpler, no? NOT, when I started modeling buildings I ran into “roof math”, trigonometry based on right triangles and ‘rise-run’. Got worse exploring writing simple CAD software, same sort of thing as I did with rawproc, more trig to make user-interface tools the available libraries don’t offer. Cripes…

So, young people out there, advice: “Be kind. Eat your Wheaties. Pay attention in your math classes…” :exploding_head:

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So I did. I studies informatics and social sciences with several lectures in math, statistic, multivariate statistic…
And then I worked as clinical data manager, creating eCRFs, worrying about 21 CRF Pt 11and Eudralex 4 Pt 11. All I needed from math is to calculate the difference between actual value and limits of blood pressure or the difference of days between two visits!

Now I 'm also retired - and I could conduct a double-blind study of raw converters. :rofl: :rofl:

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The math debate is quite amusing :wink:, but that was not the point of my intervention. Of course there is some math - hence my term “understandable”.

My first goal is to revive this thread, about Abstract profile and the new features in Selective Editing (Sigmoid, TRC, etc.) - since summer 2024.

My second is to try to clarify (without Rawpedia, and it seems that it will not be tomorrow that we will have a weak help system again), the differences in the “Wavelet” appellations, to support the “grass is always greener on the other side” type thoughts.

My third is to clarify and announce some new features on the tools using Wavelet in the background: Contrast enhancement (Abstract profile), possibility to see the changes made by the tools in “Global” mode, etc.

Jacques :grinning:

Heh, there’s always a math, down there, somewhere…

The one math I’d encourage all to learn regarding raw processing is the tone curve, or transfer function to be more proper. It’s one of the fundamental ops to translate raw data into a pleasing image, and the basis of all manner of tool monikers such as log, gamma, power, filmic, sigmoid, etc. Simple concept, but I don’t think it’s widely understood.

Hello

I just merge in dev, this pull request

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As mentioned before I find these changes really excellent. Source Sigmoid with a 1.30 contrast gives a very good starting point for most of my images. Looks like my new default. It produces better tones that my curves and it’s easy to tweak using the adjacent tools.

That mid tone slider is hard to use though, something like the infamous darktable filmic salmon look is hiding in there.

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