The darktable developers implemented a new version 6 of color science for filmic rgb in darktable 4.0. Many praise it a lot but I need to confess that I prefer the results that version 5 gave me.
Is there a way to convince darktable to always apply version 5 to all new photos?
Creating a new preset and apply it automatically to each photo doesn’t do the trick as filmic rgb doesn’t use the same values for white relative exposure and black relative exposure for each photo. Using a preset would also overwrite these values.
I often switch v6 to Luminance Y. But you are correct, you cannot do this with a preset (you can, but as you said, the automatic default relative exposures will be lost, and you’ll have to set them every time). Fortunately, the eye-dropper to set black and white relative exposure works quite well; also, changing the chroma preservation is quick, too.
Yeah the automatic settings will only work with v6. Presets can only hard-code all of the module’s parameters. There are Feature Requests to change that behaviour but I’m not sure how practical that is.
Could it not become a sticky setting like has been done with spot mapping or color mapping. That shouldn’t be hard to introduce and then the module would not need to be changed…and if changed easy to change back…
I am getting more and more use to V6 and liking it, but I can understand why some might prefer a earlier version of filmic. It would be nice to be able to set not only filmic but other modules including exposure, denoise (profiled) etc to some predefined option through the preferences menu.
I use styles a lot, but some modules like filmic and exposure don’t lend themselves well to that process. I just tested making a style that should apply filmic using V5 color science. However, when applied to a new image it opened in color science V6 in filmic. Don’t get me wrong, I like V6, but maybe some options to set up modules like filmic to open in V5 etc would be nice for some people. I do appreciate that developers have probably got better priorities to worry about. So I am not whinging. Styles are great.
Yes, but the style will fix the relative black and white levels, just like a preset does, to the values that were in effect when you created it. You lose the ability of filmic to set defaults for those values based on exposure parameters (that is only done when you enable it for the first time, or you reset the module). This is not a huge problem, but may be inconvenient.
I normally use the auto picker, anyway, so I don’t miss the defaulting that much.
Does that mean (since it gets enabled automatically), that when I adjust exposure, I should then hit the Reset Parameters button on filmic (since I usually don’t need to adjust the levels).?
Only if you think there’s something special about the auto parameters, and you haven’t changed anything else in filmic (all parameters are reset when you hit that button). I find it just as easy to correct the one or two parameters that need changing after a change in exposure.
But as I use the xtouch panel, that means I just go to the next dial after exposure. Perhaps less easy when you have to use the mouse…
Hmm it could be. However, there is a specific reason for doing this with spot mapping, and unless you actively click on something, the stored colour/exposure doesn’t affect image processing. The way this works is that it globally stores the spot measurement in named darktable config parameters. I’m not sure this is a good way to handle other module defaults, since you’d have to do it on an adhoc basis (one module parameter at a time) and I suspect it might get out of hand pretty quick. Better would be a more generic way to alter defaults, but I suspect it would add a lot of code complexity for questionable benefit.
Ya I can see that I was really at this point only considering the color science setting so that this could then let the module work as if it was free to set defaults and not lock in some values created during the preset… maybe that is what you mean as well…
I see the same values ie 4 for RW and -8 for RB for every image and if I copy the image and tweak exposure to some value no change… so if I had a preset with those values and color science v5 I am not sure what the issue would be but I think I am missing something… obviously if I set the preset with different b and w points those would be applied and might be worse than the default filmic starting points…
But filmic doesn’t seem to do anything for me based on inital exposure, should it be ??
Maybe hardness ends up at the wrong value applying filmic this way??
filmic rgb sets up some defaults based on the exif exposure compensation value (the same value that’s used to “compensate camera exposure” in the exposure module). See here.
Thanks…I will have to pay more attension…I don’t ever seem to see any change in starting values…I can see the math so it should impact B and W rel starting points …
@kofa Ignore me I’m a twit…its because I don’t auto apply filmic. I have the settings in workflow set to none and modern… I use filmic when I need to but not out of the gate I like to see the image just white balanced for the most part before I start… that’s why I don’t see the small recalculations…I was just trying to wipe the history and apply filmic to get it to do it and it doesn’t … but of course it has now occurred to me why…
Hi Andrew, I stand corrected. I tried creating a preset for filmic V5 on my windows computer at home and it worked. Still, I have no problem using V6 and will continue to do so.
In the original post it stated > Creating a new preset and apply it automatically to each photo doesn’t do the trick as filmic rgb doesn’t use the same values for white relative exposure and black relative exposure for each photo. Using a preset would also overwrite these values.< I have not tested this yet.