Software defaults, looks and starting points - Not software specific discussion

[anon41087856]

This again ? -_-

@nosle

There has developed a sort of derisory attitude towards sooc jpegs.

Yes, what’s the point of annoying opensource contributors if it is only to reproduce what you already paid for ?

@nosle

And that the commercial software companies spend huge effort on developing out of the box experience. Adobe seemingly being somewhat trapped by compatibility and consistency.

That great out-of-the-box experience leading in legendary fights to revert the software opinion of “good looking” when you are not happy with it (cf people who start editing in Capture One by muting saturation and contrast).

@nosle

There is perhaps comfort in pretending that users will just whip up a completely unique look that they set up as default and that the software is just an open framework allowing for infinite creativity.

The day my hammer starts having opinions of its own, be sure I will get a refound. Tools obey, users decide.

@nosle

My suggestion is to try and apply some of all the knowledge of these forums to look at and decipher the sooc jpegs, the commercial defaults etc.

Scene referred, display referred, and the Colour Science of Canon/Fujitsu/Nikon/etc. in Darktable (filmic-rgb module in particular)

Dear darktable developers, I own Nikon D850 camera and it has the following presets: Auto Neutral Standard Vivid Monochrome (with YORG filters) Portrait Lanscape Flat Besides, I can also choose the following Active D_Lightig options: Off Low Normal High Extra High and Auto It would be wonderful if you could integrate all these presets and corresponding combinations for my camera. Since my camera is too dumb to choose presets for me and I’m not always sure when to choose which ones myself …

I own Nikon D850 camera and it has the following presets:
Auto
Neutral
Standard
Vivid
Monochrome (with YORG filters)
Portrait
Lanscape
Flat

Besides, I can also choose the following Active D_Lightig options:

Off
Low
Normal
High
Extra High and
Auto

It would be wonderful if you could integrate all these presets and corresponding combinations for my camera.

@nosle

Those defaults, settings and colours are designed to look good and provide a huge value for the companies when successful.

Look good to whom ? Are we talking about Kodak’s take on mainstream middle-class amateur photography : “you press the button and we do the rest ?”

@nosle

My suggestion is to try and apply some of all the knowledge of these forums to look at and decipher the sooc jpegs, the commercial defaults etc. Analyze a bit more carefully what people are looking for and how defaults could be tweaked to approach a better default. The topics are being discussed in play raws etc. but not so much in the context of out of the box settings.

“People” don’t exist. The “average photographer” does not exist. There are defined groups of people, with different skills sets and expectation, that are irreconciliable with each other.

Forget knowledge (especially on a forum of week-end vocational photographers), just see how the RAW vs. OOC JPEG auto curve matching fail in Rawtherapee and darktable alike: non-smooth curves, non-portable results.

There is nothing to analyse in people’s preferences. Kodak had a whole lab in Rochester where Hunt and al. researched extensively what folks deemed “good looking” because film emulsions were pretty much fixed renditions, so they had to nail them once for all. These days are long gone. Everything is fluid now.

We don’t have the ressources, the time nor the skills to conduct such researches.

And I don’t care what the big companies are doing. They are there to make profits and sales. Eastman understood way ahead of his time that profits are in the unskilled, the untrained and the amateurs. Those users have plenty of commercial options. Now, what do the other have ? You know, the non-profitable fringe of the market that doesn’t need hand-holding ? They have endless cycles of tutorials and dumb software that want them to stay beginner for life.

There is no point in redoing opensource commercial software with less ressources. It’s doomed to fail. Salvation comes from allowing what they don’t, catering to the crowd they choose to forgot.