darktable ep 062 - The Soften module

[@shaunhayward]

Best 12 minutes I've spent learning something in darktable!

[@audio2u]

Cheers!

[@wido123123]

Wow, this is very, VERY different from what I do with the soften effect. And I use it all the time. What I do is blend it with the 'softlight' mode, increase the brigthtness, reduce some saturation and reduce the blend to about 60%. That creates a kind of dreamy landscape effect (which I believe has a name on its own). It's probably not for a model / person photoshoot, but it creates a nice effect in landscapes

[@audio2u]

Sfink says it's called the Orten effect. I'll look it up when I have a moment.

[@russarnold3764]

Like Jilles I didn't know this module existed. Excellent presentation as always, I'll be trying this to soften the background on a few shots where I should have opened the aperture a few stops.

[@audio2u]

Yep, ANOTHER great use for it!

[@gthorondor]

Excellent video, thanks!

[@audio2u]

You are welcome!

[@93Logen]

I tried to smooth skin in 3 modules. I got the worst result with the Retouch blur tool. Soften module with a parametric mask works properly. Since the contrast equalizer module is preferred in the new scene workflow I also tried it with clarity preset with negative mix value plus parametric mask. (Negative value decreases the clarity ergo smooth the picture I guess.) I played with blend mode too but I wasn't able to find any good above normal. The output wasn't bad at all, but I think the soften module provides better skin texture.

[@audio2u]

Yeah, I've always used the soften module for skin softening, too.

[@paulplus3830]

That intro got you a like right away. :)

[@audio2u]

Bwahaha! Glad you liked it! :)

[@sfink16]

Bruce - Look up the Orton Effect. I use the SoftLight Blend mode in Lightzone using the Blur module, which DT also has available. It's great for landscape shots!

[@audio2u]

Nice!

[@bigb2602]

Thank you Bruce, as always, interesting and helpful

[@audio2u]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@VieuxBat]

It can be useful in landscape photography (on sun rays for example), thanks to DT and the parametric mask + drawn the effect can be control and model to our liking/creativity.

[@audio2u]

Yeah, nice!

[@davidb2885]

I recently used it to get an out of focus background. So I used 100% opacity. The problem is, that the preview image is way more softened then the actual image. You only see that when you export, or zoom in. Besides only the very left end of the radius slider makes sense to use.

[@lefatrelefatre7783]

Sehr hilfreiche video danke..

[@audio2u]

No idea what that means, but I'll assume you said something nice! 😃

[@lefatrelefatre7783]

@@audio2u Yes :-)

[@davidknowles5519]

Cheers Bruce helpful as always

[@audio2u]

No worries

[@LosingMyCool]

Thanks, your videos are really helpful! Could you possibly use the soften module for like a glow effect, or even kind of an Orton effect?

[@audio2u]

Absolutely! It's one of the things I love about darktable. If you can imagine it, you can probably do it!

[@michaelrambousek2774]

Honestly I didn't even notice the existence of the module. In terms of skin retouching I believe there are other modules that fulfill the job better namely the retouch module and the contrast equalizer. However during my last edits I went over to correct only major skin blemishes in DT while the final skin retouch is performed in GIMP.

[@audio2u]

Like everything in darktable, there's almost always more than one way to skin a cat! 😃

[@cosmo0080]

great a easy module to learn

[@basenoter]

Bruce do you prefer the soften module over the contrast equalizer module ?

[@audio2u]

If I wanted softening, I'd use the soften module. I never use the contrast equalizer myself. I prefer an RGB tone curve.

[@michaltarana]

Nice video. So what might be the advantage of using this module instead of the lowpass filter?

[@audio2u]

Good question! Not entirely sure, to be honest!

[@michaltarana]

@@audio2u I would suspect that the lowpass with some predefined settings will be somewhere in the background of this module. I'll look into the source codes. On a different note, wouldn't you be interested in making a video on the black and white editing techniques? To review different ways and modules to achieve different looks of the b&w image? There are some videos, just all of them cover only basic things.

[@michaltarana]

I am so sorry! I overlooked your episode on B&W images! I just looked into the list of your videos and there is a beautiful 25 mins tutorial on B&W processing. Cannot wait to watch it later today. It was made in the pre-tone-equalized era, so I am wondering how this module will affect the B&W processing. Anyway, great work with your videos. They are helping me to make my photo editing significantly better.

[@gerobokdapur8165]

Thanks 👍👍

[@audio2u]

No worries! 😃

[@screamphotographic]

I'd still like to see the fake tilt shift if you ever get to do it.

[@audio2u]

You know the look , though, right?

[@screamphotographic]

@@audio2u yes for sure!

[@JillesvanGurp]

I wasn't even aware this module existed; is it new or have I just glanced over it all these years? In any case, looks like a useful tool. If you can stand to work on self portraits, you might want to use it again ;-).

[@screamphotographic]

Its been there a while

[@audio2u]

Yeah, it's been there since at least 2.2 (which was when I came to the dark side). Are you suggesting I'm ugly enough to need to use it on myself? :)

[@JillesvanGurp]

@@audio2u He he, your camera setup is high resolution enough that a bit of softening would not hurt. It might also be the light in the room.

[@alangaughran]

@@JillesvanGurp Do you have many friends?

[@joaovtaveira]

I have some difficulties to understand what's the point of soften an image.

[@audio2u]

Well, as I demonstrated, it can be used for soften skin in portraiture, but it can also be used to reduce depth of field (fake bokeh), and I'm sure there are other opportunities as well. It doesn't have to be for everybody though! 😃

[@joaovtaveira]

@@audio2u sory, just a joke.

[@joaovtaveira]

A stupid one, actually.

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Bokeh is a Japanese word meaning blur, find here on YT the video "How to Pronounce Bokeh? (Japanese)".

[@audio2u]

I was aware of its origins, but I hear so many variations on the pronunciation! :)

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

@@audio2u The Japanese pronunciation should be the original one as you can hear it in the video, though it might feel too Samurai'ish in the mouth of the English speaking world, but as a Viking I have no problems with - BÅKÉ! - short and edgy like a curse word ;O) It just sounds funny for a description of a soft and sometimes beautiful attribute of an image.

[@mickehog76]

Thanks to you I switched over to darktable from Lightroom. And of course it works great in Linux. In many ways I actually prefer the functions in darktable. I would love to see a 30 minuters video where you are playing with teddybears. No, just kidding ;). I hope darktable will support cr3 someday. Until then I will convert cr3 to dng.

[@audio2u]

Welcome to the dark side! 😃 As for .cr3, the file types that darktable can read/process is handled by lensfun, so I'm guessing we vex to wait for the devs there to update the database. If in not mistaken (I'm not a Canon shooter), .cr3 has been out for a while now, right? Like, 6 months or so? If that's the case, support can't be far away.

[@mickehog76]

@@audio2u It's so much brighter on the darkside ;). Cr3 was actually introduced 2018. But Rawtherapee just recently got support for cr3. So I guess it will not take long time now for darktable to get support for it too. Rawtherapee is great but darktable is better. Mask features, more user friendly and you are doing amazing tutorials about darktable :).

[@audio2u]

Thanks! 😃