darktable ep 099 - Tone curve, RGB curve, and the Tone Equalizer
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- #darktable #tutorial #curves
In this episode, we look at the two curves modules (Tone curve, and RGB curve) and the Tone Equalizer, and how they differ.
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For this picture, the 3 tools make a pretty similar effect because it's fairly neutral. If you try again with saturated colors, you will see how the RGB curve adds saturation in shadows and removes some in highlights. The tone curve tries to prevent that effect but turns the shadows blue-grey instead (one of the quirks of the Lab space, I suppose). Tone EQ does a simple exposure compensation, except it's parametric, so it leaves colors alone. Also, it's designed to complement filmic and that's where the white/black points are set.
Thanks Aurélien! It didn't occur to me to try a more contrast-y image.
@@audio2u Based on Aurélien's email, I was kinda thinking the same, the photo is too well-exposed to realy make a different (he constantly mentions high DR images). Could you do a follow-up with a sunset, or some really high DR images?
Also, I totally agree with you, working with RGB curves is waaay more easy to understand than Tone EQ. I will even go farther and say that (to me) working in LAB is more intuitive than RGB. Yes, I understhand the reasons behind ditching display-refered, but moving LAB sliders feels way WAY easier than moving RGB sliders
Another thing to add to the list! 😃
@@audio2u Glad to give ideas! from your previous vid, seems like you need some suggestions :D
Aaah! Aurelien, but for Monet the shadows were always blue.
Short, sweet, concise and (as usual) clearly explained. Many thanks.
Cheers!
You have nothing to "give away"!? That's a blatant lie! In every video you give and if you keep doing that, that's giveaway enough for me. :D
Haha!
Excellent! Module-crossovers such as this one is what darktable somehow always needed (module redundance) but after its later versions it becomes ESSENTIAL to get a grip, particularly for those of us that come from years of display-referred workflows (without even knowing that name or what it meant at all). Thanks, I need more of this!!!
Cheers!
Quick tip there is a preset that comes in the tone module called simple tone curve...this is what Bruce described ....and in the scene referred workflow you will often by design to accomodate your DNR slide the tone eq curve back and forth a little to dial in the effect using that exposure setting that Bruce used to center his mask. There are also 3 pre defined tone curve presets that you can use and then slide them with the tone eq exposure slider or tweak the shape of the curve a bit....
Thanks for sharing the workload, Todd! 😃
Great stuff, really looking forward to that master-class! It's so hard to find in depth and yet practical tutorials on darktable. Even more so, when looking for a pleasant form of presentation.
Thanks Daniel!
I'll second that. Watching Bruce is like having a chat with him...very personal connection
Great posting! so much absorbed recently from both Aurélien's and your videos! It's been a real game changer for me, thank you both!
Glad it was helpful!
Congrats on expanding your business especially with the masterclass. I'm setting up a tech channel and am going through the same learning curve.
For your 100th episode, I suggest a retrospective on your journey so far. We all love a good story... especially a success story.
Haha...that's a great idea! I might just do that! 😃
Great idea!
I totally agree with you in that the user interface for this module seems overly complicated and not so intuitive. I see that Aurelien has a quite lengthy video on dodging and burning using this module as well. Maybe that will add some clarity?
I think I watched that when it came out. Probably should watch it again.
Thanks for this video. Thanks for all of them. Maybe Episode 100 should be a Zoom meeting
Cheers.
Good stuff, tahnk you again. "wading in quicksand"; I know what you mean! Pretty much why I took early retirement from my IT job. If I were setting up a website I'd look carefully at the content management systems on offer, there are a bunch to choose from. Makes managing the site and adding content so much easier. Also worth mentioning the tone equaliser also allows you to mouse over the image and use the mouse wheel to adjust the exposure; I love this feature. Best wishes for the new website. Cheers
Thanks Keith.
great video, keep it up! all the best, mate!
Cheers!
Thank you again for this valueable work!
My pleasure!
Very good job as usual; I would like an in deep black&white processing workflow for the next.
Cheers!
Great video as always, Bruce. I've been using the Tone Equalizer on its own more and more lately (without filmic) because I don't always need the compression that filmic introduces. The results have been a real eye-opener, with so much more detail visible in highlights especially. But I agree with you that the GUI for the Tone Equalizer is not as easy to work with. Not sure if this would interest you, but I would love a more in-depth video on the masking tab and how to get a good Tone Equalizer mask. I know it should be blurry, but all the sliders produce such different results and degrees of blurriness that it's hard to know what the "ideal" mask should look like.
But seriously, revisit some old photos you've processed that have have lots of details in highlights. Turn off filmic and reprocess them using just the tone equalizer. You might be surprised how much more detail you can recover.
Interesting. I'm not sure I WANT to struggle with the Tone Equalizer, but I get your point. I'll give it a go.
lol, you're right, it doesn't sound too appealing does it, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for speed edits or shots with really high dynamic range. But I was just surprised how much more detail I could tease out without filmic getting in the way. Bit more of a labour of love though, I admit.
I didn't asked... but I do appreciate the explanation!
😃😋
No worries!
Ok, I tried without the curves Tone and RGB. A very interesting approach to the picture, regarding the tonal values only. Thrilling are the blending Operators offered in the Tone EQ. Applied on Images with strong Backlight - for example: each pavement, each white painted wall could be one source by reflecting the sun rays - they help getting details back.
Bruce wanna give a look? Thx
Will have to check.
For the 100th episode, we'll need cake and candles.
As for a give away, why not process an image from someone as a gift for that person?
Cake and candles....like the sound of that!
I just had a play with this using one of my mostly dark low-key images, it didn't seem to have much impact, so I wonder if this module is more for the outdoors photographers, available light and landscapes,
See Aurélien's comment further down (or up, depending on how youtube sorts the comments).
Olá sou brasileira eu estou gostando muito dos seus Conteúdos parabéns!
Can anyone translate this so I know it's not spam?
Hi Bruce, thanks again for another vlog, just by chance, do you know when will the new version be available for Mac Users? Thank you very much, and best regards.
Current version for all platforms is 3.6. Next update will be 3.8 at Christmas.
Is the display referred workflow a destructive workflow? And the scene referred non destructive? Are all these workflows focus in trying to preserve luma and colors that are clipped with any of the modules used?
John, check out my video on display-referred v scene-referred workflows. I think it was ep 090, or thereabouts.
It's not so much destructive vs non-destructive as the way the colours and luma are mapped. Hopefully, that video will answer your questions.
Thanks for the great video! I was wondering, wouldn't Filmic RGB be a better replacement for the base/RGB curve? Sure, it does a lot of stuff and it can be daunting, but in terms of easiness of setting black/white points and the adding some contrast (which was rightly your main point in this video) I suppose Filmic would be a better option compared to the Tone equaliser.
PS: I love your epistolary correspondence with Aurelian :D He knows all the theory and bombards you with so much precious knowledge. We peasants are illiterate, and thanks to you we can learn what a certain module/slider/parameter does without too much headache!
Well, to a point, I suppose filmic RGB fills that role, but not with the degree of flexibility that you get from a curves module. Sure, it lets you set black relative exposure and white relative exposure, but you can't set two points in between at will.
As for the correspondence, it's great that Aurélien is happy to try and help ME understand it, and I can then translate it for the masses (or at least, attempt to!).
@@audio2u There is also the issue of access to the individual color color curves in both ie the r g b and L a and b channel curves...which many people make use of....might actually be a good topic to address what if any scene referred workflow would replace those tools commonly used by many.....
Hi Bruce,
first and foremost a big thank for your great editorial darktable videos which I appreciate a lot.
I use darktable (now 3.6 version) since a couple of months (so I am a newbie in respect of working with darktable and the use of RAW format).
One fact, in respect of file size, surprises me, maybe my darktable settings ought to be optimized.
I shot a foto in RAW (file size 23,6 MB from a Sony A6500 APS-C camera). I processed the foto in darktable, saved it as JPEG (max. size 6000x4000, max. quality) and the resulting file size is 2,19 MB!
Do I have a problem kind of „lost“ data, resolution and the like?
A parallel shot in JPEG (xfine = max. quality) will have a file size of ca. 13 MB.
That can be an issue since stock agencies accept only fotos larger than (e.g.) 4 or 5 MB.
Do you have any idea what to do, in case there is an issue at all?
Many thanks in advance and greetings from Germany. Volker
Volker, welcome to the dark side! 😃
I would double check all of your export settings, because you are right, a 6000x4000 pixel image saved in jpeg at highest quality should be up around 10-12MB.
@@audio2u Thanks a lot for your quick answer. I did as told, here the "process" and results:
RAW original from camera 23,6 MB;
DT-processed just lense correction and WB => 5,2 MB; DT-processed almost everything to try and learn (sharpening, tone curve, local contrast, haze removal, filmic RGB, chromatic aber.) but NO denoise => 7,2 MB; DT-processed almost everything plus denoise profile (default setting) => 5,0 MB; DT-processed almost everything plus denoise RAW (default setting) => 2,4 MB; DT-processed almost everyting plus denoise profile and RAW denoise => 2,2 MB.
It seems that the RAW denoise has the greatest impact on JPEG-file size.
Well, there is a humongous amount of stuff to learn and to figure out. Thanks for helping and supporting.
Greetings from Germany
Hi Bruce. Really enjoy your very informative videos. I am experiencing an issue on the darkroom side of the program. My photos have started darkening when I click on the thumbnails. They seem to loose about a stop of exposure. Is this normal with the scene referred workflow? Or have I inadvertently switched something on that I maybe shouldn't have? Thanks in advance.
Are you referring to newly-imported RAW files? A lot of people are surprised when their newly-imported RAW files look like the in-camera jpeg in the lightroom, but the moment you switch to darkroom, the in-camera jpeg preview is discarded and you are looking at the actual RAW data. Maybe this is what you are witnessing?
@@audio2u Yes. The RAW file. In the film strip along the bottom of dark room they all appear bright. Then as I click on each of them, they load on the main view in the middle of the screen. Then a second latter loose brightness by a few stops. Didn't happen when I first started using the new version. Strange but correctable through the exposure module. Just adds an extra step. Appreciate your response.
Yep, what you are describing is what I explained above.
You initially see the in-camera jpeg preview, but once you load the RAW into the darkroom view, darktable resets to the RAW data values so you can then develop the digital neg from a clean starting point.
@@audio2u Thanks for clearing that up for me. Great work. Keep safe.
You could do a giveaway for the 100th episode of the new master class for 1 winner?
Not a bad idea!
👍👍👍
All I see is 3 boxes.
What can we expect for the episode 100?
Still in flux....
👍
Can't see anything but a square box.
I am new to post processing softwares. So I am planning to use darktable to organise and edit my photos. I am currently using capture one express. Most of my pictures are JPEGs as only recently I bought a camera capable of shooting RAW. So is darktable any good for editing JPEGs? How is it compared to Lightroom and any other software when it comes to JPEGs?
I'd suggest try it out. Jpegs don't have all that information a raw file has. So processing is limited. Some Programs use a sort of AI to edit your jpegs. You can work with jpegs in Darktable, no problem. And you can get some good results. I had to edit some old images with blown out sky or wrong colors and if you know what modules to use, you can definitely save/change some photos.
@@xperience-evolution cool let me give it a shot then... Any idea how it compares to Lightroom for JPEGs? I have seen Lightroom give some pretty good results.
@@vedanta90 Depends on what you want to achieve. But to be honest: I don't know Lightroom very well. Just from a friend who uses it.
Maybe you can use Gimp as well to tweak your jpegs (I always used gimp before I got a Camera able to shoot raw).
For your future photography you should definitively shoot in raw (you can choose raw and jpeg if you need to). Compressed Raw is enough but just try it out.
darktable is just as competent as Lightroom when it comes to processing jpegs.
@@audio2u ya started trying it and I could almost reproduce some effects I got from Lightroom using clarity and dehaze tool. This without knowing much about darktable, so quite sure it won't disappoint. My initial thoughts it has a steep learning curve but is possibly more powerful in terms of things you can do to your photos. A bit laggy and crushes sometimes but that's fine. Looking forward to sorting and editing my 6000+ JPEGs 🙂. You got a new sub. Thanks for the awesome work.
Any celebration for the 100th video??
Don't know... got any ideas? :)
@@audio2u maybe: what is / could / should be the future of DT?
Thanks for your great work Bruce, and all the best for _your_ future ;)
@@audio2u Maybe you could live stream an editing session for 100 minutes :D
Bwahaha! Bore the crap out of everyone, you mean? Don't I do that enough already?
@@audio2u NO!!!! it would be awesome!! You'd get to chat with your viewers live and maybe hold vote sessions for each element of editing (cooler shadows or warmer shadows, etc). I would be very entertained!!
Heh you give us your expertise that is plenty BW
This in reference to having nothing to give away (for ep 100)?
@@audio2u yes indeed
As much as I like darktable, I have to say that this not the best way to make dark table better.
I'm linux user and photography is my hobby. DT is best photography tool for linux (that's my opinion of course) but regular photography may fail with darktable learning curve.
I'm aware that we don't need to use every module but for example with lightroom I can achieve same or better results without knowing that something like scene referred workflow exist.
I feel that darktable is made by scientists/ it people for scientists and it people and not for the photographers.
Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger! 😃
I understand what you're saying though. I've come to understand that to get the best out of darktable, you DO need to put in the hard yards, to learn the science behind it, and that's not going to be for everyone.
I have had this idea kicking around in my head lately that it's a bit like the difference between those people who just want to buy a car and drive it with no idea of how it works (Lightroom users) and those people who like to pull the engine apart, customise it, rebuild it, and totally understand what makes it tick (darktable users). And that's not a criticism of Lightroom users! Most people don't need to know how it works. They just want results. And that's totally fine!
@@audio2u No shooting at all! 😃
I just have a feeling that easier darktable=more user=more popularity=chance for faster development
And as I said. I like dt very much 😁
Not sure we need FASTER development! I'm struggling to keep to as it is! 😃