Split toning: Log vs Primaries in Darktable

Hi all! I’ve recently started to watch many color grading tutorials to try to learn to edit my pictures better in the color department. In particular in regards to split toning. I found this Youtube channel, Waqas Qazi, that focuses on Davinci, where they share many color grading processes and techniques for video. On this video they talk about Log vs Primaries in Davinci, and how you need both to make a grade believable.

Also this:

Its main points are the following:

  • You need both Primaries and Log wheels to make a grade work.
  • Primaries are broader adjustments, while Log wheels are adjustable and surgical.
  • If blacks are black, whites are white, and skin tones look realistic, you can really push a look.

Darktable’s Color balance RGB lets us do split toning in the 4-ways tab:

  • Through global offset we can add color to the whole image.
  • Through shadows lift we can tint the darker parts of our image.
  • Through highlights gain we can tint the lighter parts of our image.
  • The power affects our midtones (it is actually a broader adjustment than that, but this is just so we can more or less understand what the sliders do).

They are very similar to the Primary adjustments in Davinci. What I am not sure how to do is the next step, which would be done through Log wheels in Davinci: removing color casts from blacks and whites. How would you go about it? I’ve tried parametric masks and global offset with relatively good results, although it requires a lot more steps than what this guy does in Davinci with a few clicks. Perhaps this is on the devs’ radar for future updates?

If you have any other ways to go about it, let me know.

I really appreciate your feedback both here and in the Simplify Tone Equalizer thread. However, I suspect the answer to your question here will be close to the reply you got in the other thread :slightly_smiling_face::

darktable, as a still image editor, went on a lonely pilgrimage when switching most development focus to a scene referred workflow. This shift in focus has its pros and cons, but the way I’m reading this forum is that a lot of development will be spent figuring out how to do things in this new paradigm. Scene referred meant reimagining much of the tool set from the ground up it must have been a huge undertaking. A lot of pieces seems to be falling into place and I’m hoping there will eventually be some time (and perhaps interest) to focus on UX. Right now, I’m trying to embrace the sliders and ignore the ones I don’t need.

As for my own workflow, I’m half way scene referred (if that could even be considered a thing). The tone equalizer can’t really replace the good old rgb curve module as long as the control points are locked on the horizontal axis. After 25 years of curves usage it feels like working in a straitjacket. Using “the old modules” mostly seems to work fine though (despite the warnings). So, as a rule (that might not be applicable in this exact scenario) you could try mixing in some of the old ways of working and see what results you get.

Actually I just figured this one out on my own. This is already possible using two more instances of color balance RGB, one for the blacks and one for the whites. You have to make the shadows/highlights falloff very steep, and then you control the mask through the mask middle gray fulcrum.

It works better in the shadows than in the highlights, though, since it allows me to go as far as to actually not select any shadows. That doesn’t happen in the highlights, but that might be a bug on my version.

Awesome that you found a way that you think works. :slight_smile:

Yup, it works

Have you tried Resolve as a still image raw converter for DNG btw? I haven’t. Have only used it for video.

Free version has limited resolution but you can for sure there are a few good videos that show how to set it up to do so…

https://blog.dehancer.com/articles/editing-photos-in-davinci-resolve/\

I’ve never used Davinci, actually. I was only interested in it, since it is known to have very advanced color grading tools. The Davinci color grading tutorials I found on youtube are generally much more comprehensive than their Lightroom/Capture one counterparts.

The good news is: we have similarly advanced tools inside Darktable.