In the default scene referred workflow color balance is earlier in the pipe than filmic. Does this suggest that color balancing should be done before going to filmic? Is there any reason why one should not move back and forth between the two modules?
I always use filmic before color balance.
The pipeline order and the order that you move the sliders do not need to be the same.
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No - to the best of my knowledge! I sometimes end up with a very messy history stack through jumping back and forth, but the compress history stack button tidies it up if one wants to.
I always start looking at the photo and make the exposure adjustment without filmic or sigmoid… In many cases I continue from there using a selection of instances of CC, local contrast, CB, Tone Eq and D&S. Often, I can complete a nice edit without either. I use them when the DNR warrants it but if you can edit without them then often you can get more natural detail without having to do a dance with the compression and color changes to get to where you are happy…
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Other than editing efficiency, no. You can waste a lot of time going back and forth. In particular, anything that changes the dynamic range risks “invalidating” the filmic relative exposure values. As Mica says, it’s not the order in which you move sliders that matter, only the order that the modules appear in the pixelpipe/module list (which is not the same as the history stack).
I do the bulk of the editing before I even touch filmic. I then might go back and do some tweaks. But I find that as I get more experience, I get better at predicting what filmic will do, so less need to go back.