I’ll give an opinionated workflow if this can help you to have a basis to work with. The module are in the order I generally follow when editing with how I use them:
Main workflow
| module | usage |
|---|---|
color calibration |
Set the white balance with the picker on a neutral area (grey/white). Check that “area color mapping” is set to (50, 0°, 0) |
exposure |
Adjust until the midtones are midtones¹ |
tone equalizer |
Correct shadows and highlights in case of high dynamic scene. Sometimes it is better to use one instance for shadows and one instance for highlights. Watch for the potential halos and correct with the parameters |
sigmoid |
Starting from the soft preset, I set it in sRGB mode (primaries section) and use it to increase general contrast in a soft manner. You can increase the white point by setting the “target white” above 100% to increase contrast in highlights² |
color balance rgb |
Adjust saturation and contrast. I generally increase saturation in the shadows and decrease it in the highlights. For a softer contrast, I use the “perceptual brilliance grading” section. For a more punchy contrast, I use the contrast slider, and in this case I usually set the “contrast gray fulcrum” setting (last tab of the module) to the area where I want the biggest contrast increase³ |
color equalizer |
Tweak the individual colors to give a style to the picture or correct specific hues |
color balance rgb |
A second instance after (above) the first to do the color grading. I use the “4-way” tab to add different colors in shadows/highlights |
diffuse and sharpen |
I use the “lens deblur” preset and use a mask to restrict sharpening to the details and midtones |
contrast equalizer |
To sharpen and add local contrast. I only use the finest (last two) scales because I don’t like the effect of the largest scales. I mask this module to restrict it to zones with details and avoid adding noise (I re-use the diffuse and sharpen mask using the raster mask) tab. Watch the halos when using larger scales |
¹ You can use the color picker section in Lch mode and check that your midtones region is around 50% in luminance.
² You can press “o” or activate the clipping indication button to check that you are not clipping (too much) in the whites.
³ If you are using the luminance slider in the power section of the 4 way tab of color balance rgb, be sure to set the “white fulcrum” in the “masks” tab of the module (use the associated auto picker).
Utilities (enabled by default in my preset)
| module | usage |
|---|---|
lens corrections |
default settings |
chromatic abberations |
default settings |
denoise (profiled) |
default settings most of the time, chroma only in case of high noise. |
dithering |
set to “random” -80dB to avoid banding in gradients (social media compressions tend to do this) |
hot pixels |
default settings |