darktable editing tips for a beginner

[bakubo]

Don't use base curve, not ever.

Here is a post by Aurélien Pierre. He is the person who spent the last few years creating the scene-referred workflow (using the filmic module) in darktable. He says now that display-referred (using the base curve module) has also been fixed because of all the changes to darktable. So now you can choose whichever one you prefer and still be able to get good results. Here is his post and thread:

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/aurelien-said-basecurve-is-bad/29055

Here is the bit at the bottom which sort of summarizes it:

So now, base curve is color-safe, as far as color profiles and chromatic adaptation are concerned.

So, as of darktable 3.0 and later, base curve or filmic achieve the same goal mostly the same way (you get those chromaticity-preserving norms in base curve too), the only difference being in the GUI and the ability to scale the curve look to the input dynamic range.

So filmic is essentially a base curve with a different GUI. And a sh!tload of other features because just applying a tone curve is not nearly enough to get a smooth highlights roll-off. But, now, filmic or base curve is pretty much a matter of taste, and whether you keep a pipeline normalized between [0;1] or not.

 

[ATP62]

Does anyone know if there is some kind of AI masking coming any soon ?

 

[FujiJon]

For me, base curve at default settings always blew the highlights, requiring much tweaking to get them back. Sigmoid just works, and very seldom needs tweaking. Filmic workswell but is horribly complicated - I can get good results but usually only after swearing at it.

 

[StrugglingforLight]

This post by gigaturbo on pixls.us is a great starting point imo. I like how he breaks down every step into something understandable to the average joe.

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/struggling-with-learning-and-improving-my-post-processing/50958/11

 

[Mark_A]

This post by gigaturbo on pixls.us is a great starting point imo. I like how he breaks down every step into something understandable to the average joe.

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/struggling-with-learning-and-improving-my-post-processing/50958/11

Thanks StrugglingforLight,

I hope to have a good look at it this week sometime.

Mark_A

 

[StrugglingforLight]

This post by gigaturbo on pixls.us is a great starting point imo. I like how he breaks down every step into something understandable to the average joe.

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/struggling-with-learning-and-improving-my-post-processing/50958/11

Thanks StrugglingforLight,

I hope to have a good look at it this week sometime.

Mark_A

Also a tip. Create a "My Favorites" tab in Darktable's darkroom (I can't recall if by default it comes with one). Either way add your most used modules in there, in the order you'll use them. It'll save time.

 

[VidJa]

There is some talk about it, but the biggest issue is lack of definition what to do with AI tools and some implementation hurdles too.