Just a mini-update to my latest post:
OK, I’m actually impressed with what Shadows and Highlights can do. As @priort said, changing the radius and compress sliders makes a big difference. I basically turned all the filter sliders off to see what I could do with this very challenging low-dynamic range shot, and experimenting with increasing the dynamic range:
The left is Shadows & Highlights, right side is Tone Equalizer with simple tone curve. There is no tone mapper used here, just a little boost of exposure and nothing else:
The results are quite similar, with perhaps a bit more local contrast in the Shadows and HIghlights version. But the BIG difference was how much quicker it was. It was just a few clicks with Shadows and Highlights, whereas it was dozens with TE to get the curve right.
We’ve gone a bit off-topic now, but I definitely see that this module could be an alternative to TE. I’d just like to see a few more sliders to control different areas of the tonal range, not just shadows and highlights.
I find the shadow and highlights module handles the task differently to TE module. I feel the shadow and highlights module is superior in some cases. In particular, I like the control I have to adjust the color (saturation?) in the shadows and highlights.While not always desirable I like how the S&H module lifts the colors in the shadows while the TE only brightens the shadows. I don’t see one as replacing the other, but rather both doing a similar job a little differently.
I also like your suggestion about adding a few more zones, but then it may behave in a totally different fashion.
I 100% agree with this statement. I grew up in the darkroom and dodging and burning is an imprecise art of lightening and darkening areas of an image. TE and S&H modules are very different in my view.
Yes, that’s what many people forget when using Tone EQ: there’s an internal mask based on exposure levels that can be modified, allowing you to adjust the exposure of specific areas using that mask, which is equivalent to use several exposure module with masks.
Can someone please create an AppImage with the new tone equalizer module? This could also help other users to have a look at it.
I know I should do it myself, but I don’t trust myself to do it. I’ve broken darktable so many times and I’m happy that I’m at least able to create the master version myself.
Thanks for providing the appimage, gave me a chance to test it out. Here are my thoughts:
I never use the individual sliders in the ‘curve’ tab, but do use the ‘curve smoothing’. It would be great to have that in the ‘main’ tab, so I don’t have to switch between the two.
The histogram seems buggy. Sometimes it disappears, sometimes it only seems to appear when I hover over the image.
Why does the curve go orange and red now when I change it? What is that trying to tell me? At first I found it off putting, then helpful when I saw it was generally good to avoid the red. Might it be better to just have white and red? So orange doesn’t ring any alarm bells.
Can ‘fully fit’ also have the ‘mask contrast / scale histogram’ slider?
Overall, it definitely helped me go faster than before, and I’m in favour of the changes. It’s great not having to change tabs (this is a Godsend!), and one slider is faster to adjust than two (though that is somewhat offset by trying to decide between ‘at shadows’, ‘at highlights’ etc… but I guess as I get used to it I’ll work out when to use each of those more quickly).
Please note that the current PR version has a bug. Edits will be wrong, especially on images with a high dynamic range. I am working on a new version.
Hmmm. It feels very logical to group all curve-related items under “curve”. What do others think about this point?
This is a known issue and on the TODO list.
It’s explained in the very first post of this thread. Basically there are two conditions that may make the image look worse than what you would expect:
A downward slope of the curve that is too steep. This can be a red or orange warning, depending on how steep it actually is.
There is also an orange warning if you are doing something that enhances contrast (i.e lower the shadows) with the guided filter active. The same algorithm that prevents loss of contrast when reducing the dynamic range will prevent you from gaining contrast when you increase the dynamic range. So in this situation you should turn off the GF or use an entirely different module (i.e. Color Balance RGB).
If this version ever gets integrated into DT master, I will describe this in the manual.
I have had several people mention that they want to see the shift/scale values that the automatic modes produce (even if they can not be edited - that is the point of automatic modes). This is also on my TODO list.
Thanks for your work on this. I have been somewhat following the discussions in the background, and I know there are some who are still a bit reluctant to embrace this new version. I believe it’s because they simply like the module as it currently stands. But I feel this is a very polarizing module, and there are also many who don’t like the way it currently works and would like to see it improved. So, I’m excited to test this new version when I can (I’m on Windows).
Is the intention to have the “legacy” part of it work exactly the same as the old module? In other words, for those who like the current version, will they essentially be able to work in the same way they are used to?
If it’s too difficult to keep both camps happy, has the option to have this as a completely separate module been considered?
The legacy part works exactly like the old module. It has to do this, because the module has to support previously edited images. Only the arrangement of some UI elements differs.
DT devs generally don’t want to add new modules. See this quote from above:
I had forgotten that, thanks. Going through Github, there still seems to be some reluctance to embrace the new module, but maybe because the legacy mode is not yet completely working as it should.
All good then. Hopefully the kinks can be ironed out, and everyone will be happy.
Depends heavily on who you ask, there have been quite a few users who request not to touch this module. But there is a maximalist “accept everything” sort of mentality.
I’ll have to think hard on if I want to carry my own patches to undo these changes.
If it’s just a few UI changes in legacy mode, will it be that different? Even AP has updated the module UI in Ansel.
I don’t know, I haven’t tested the new version yet, but I thought it was universally accepted that the UI was not the best. There has always been some annoying tab switching needed.
Well, I wouldn’t be averse to it being a separate module, but I’m not one of the decision makers.
