Why do darktable colours look like sh*t ? (And other colour appearance matters)

[@emrg777]

Thanks as always for your video's. I think the key point in all of it beyond the science comes down to the DT philosophy. I think many people would look at the photo of the fire and be quite happy with the result given by turning preservation off. The focus would be on the hightlights and they would seem to be addressed by that small change. I think because DT does not start with these kinds of settings for the reasons and the science that you have mentioned and other software does it comes across to many users adopting or converting to DT that it is inferior. Other software might even have some similar tools to give you accurate results but they are not always the defaults. I think the defaults often go to a jpg or jpg on steroids look. In the end there is nothing wrong with that, just use that software because that meets your expectation and don't use it as the reference for assessing the ability and functionality of DT where the approach is different

It's more like a choice between 2 different approaches : 1. the all-in-one "look good", which works in one step but will lock you away from further editing or make it really hard, 2. the step-by-step "divide and conquer", which separates each issue into its own step but will need you to complete all of these steps to get a result. In the approach #2, the science helps us separating the issues into unit problems that are less overwhelming to solve separately. In the approach #1, you get faster results, good or bad, but when bad then you don't have fallback plans.

[@emrg777]

@ Basically what I was trying to convey. If for example the default in RT or ART was the neutral profile instead of the automatched one you would basically end up with something like DT with no tone mapping...But you start with loads of color and contrast which can't sometimes even be bang on but other time not good. Even the auto match can produce a wide variety of results if you play with the curve types. When I expt with it I prefer the neutral profile and building up but others will be just the reverse. If you start flat though nothing is overboard or out of range and that is not always the case with the various color profiles applied in some software. In general I think people are getting more comfortable with it....

[@phillcom3]

The thing is nothing explains it when you open it. The uninformed will always their for think it's shit. Most do not have time or will to go and fund out what's happening. Its like Lightroom is made for people in a sandpit. You play. Darktable is for an architect building the fully designed mathematical house. People dont have time to get a degree in colour sciance, or the interest. They want it to just work.

@@phillcom3 Lightroom is made for amateurs happy to play with a toy that allows them to remain unskilled. So much so that they have lost the basic humility to acknowledge that their hobby is someone else's job. darktable is pretty much on-par with video color-grading software. The difference is the cinema industry has budget to pay real professionals that actually attended a school to learn their trade, including the basic color theory that every photographer around seems to despise so much, probably because it's a reminder that they don't know what they are doing. Lightroom is not "just working", it is also removing creative options and choices from you, and people interested in these options will need to start Photoshop after. Problem is, Lightroom damaged the color before, so whatever you do in PS starts with fighting against what LR did. I don't know any professional software that can be used without spending some time on the doc, that's just outright silly (even for text processors or spreadsheets soft) and I don't see why all photo editing soft should cater to the beginner/unskilled/untrained crowd: they are already really well served by all the commercial offer. All that remains to people interested in specific results is Photoshop and its color science sucks (they didn't even got alpha blending working properly). That's also incredibly disrespectful for all the real pros and skilled darkroom printers to expect any software to just magically replace them. There is a lot more going on than just filters.

[@phillcom3]

@ I whole agree! I moved from lightroom thanks to how boring it got. There felt like no creativity was allowed. To me pushing sliders just didn't feel like I was achieving what I wanted or if I remember right it felt more like I was applying an Instagram filter or somthing. Aka somthing I dispose as just not art or skillfull. It was just plane boring.

[@raptr49]

Thank you!!! This was a big puzzle for me.

[@caigner]

Your videos are so full of knowledge and science that watching once is not enough to take all in. So I re-watch the videos again and again, and every time I recognise some new detail. Thank you so much for your continuing effort making darktable better and better.

[@imzaydan]

Thank you for the explanations! I was confuse at first, why it's different when I open it on lighttable and darkroom, now I know.

[@lionheart4424]

Thanks for this video and for your work in Darktable. I started learning about photography and color editing last month, and Darktable has an incredible range of features. It is overwhelming to navigate through so many options that I have no idea what they are supposed to do. But I always prefer to have the CHOICE for exoerimenting with tools. And having that with an open source software its just a blessing. Thank you so much.

[@gotflute123]

Thank you Aurelien. I hope these videos will encourage more photographers to have more control over their work. Your (and the community's) gift of consistency is greatly appreciated, not only in my product and still life photography, but also in the crazy world of documentary photography, with different types of cameras and varying conditions. Also, the predictability darktable supplies is especially important in printed work, if there is to be a hope of intent in our work like that of photographers in the film/darkroom era. Merci, and keep up the great work, both on the development side and the educational side as well.

[@PeterLavender]

Thanks for taking the time to make these videos Aurélien. I learn so much each time.

[@FLStudioTutorialz]

Your work is amazing. Thank you for that.

[@oldcodger]

Very good presentation, thanks for all your efforts. I can honestly say that I get much better results from darktable than I did in my previous software. It's been a long but rewarding learning curve.

[@wido123123]

Thanks for the explanation (and honestly, for all the work you've done in DT). I understand the reasons behind all the "newer" color science. However, I would like there would be "simpler" modules as well. In this scenario, "fixing" the green tint in the fire could take way more time to "fix" than preserving crominance and reducing saturation after. I find that I usually move 2 slides in film, 2 in color balance and so on (yes, I am aware of the newer `quick access`). Even if film is better than curves, I found curves are more intuitive to use. Even if RGB is better than LAB, I found the latter more intuitive to use. I am also aware that human power is limited, so having all the options are usually not viable. So please take this as a random comment

[@JIMMYSBN]

Great content! Thanks a lot

[@okay1904]

Thank you Aurelien. for this explanation. Without understanding why, I have preferred the predictability of the workflow of the recent darktable versions, to the JPG from my camera - because over time, I realised that the OOC JPG from my camera was a hyper realistic image, usually with reduced dynamics range for heightened effect. I prefer the control that darktable gives me, to add as much or as little enhancement as I choose. Thank you for this explanation, and also I now understand why I never really got on well with LUTS(3dLUTS) , as a replacement module, for the filmic or the base module, cos sometimes it would be ok, and at other times it would not be ok.

[@b.h.9490]

Thank you very much for the very enlighting video!

[@localhost0148]

Superb video/explication et ta chaîne se le être rempli dès vidéos similaire. J'aime.

[@jirinovotny5580]

Thank you, I finally got the results I wanted 🙂

[@codeguitars7993]

As always a great video and explanation, thx!

[@mysza456]

Great video. I found it by myself that preserve chrominance option is "causing" not pleasing colors, especially in skin tones, so I almost always turn it off right away. And then I'm struggling with color balance rgb module, because it's so unpredictable then. Now I know why. ;) Also great insight with those skin, sky and green colors paper. Really educational. Thank you for your work.

[@emrg777]

Try the vectorscope if you have not already...DT doesn't put in a skin line but you can still assess your skin tone and make the necessary corrections to hue and saturation...use restrict to selection and select your skin patches

Typical case where it's really important to split the editing steps rather than aiming for the immediately better-looking path.

[@rambazamba7738]

Very interesting thank you for the explanation! Funily enough for me it is the opposite.😁 Since the introduction of the modules Filmic and Color Calibration my images looks very good/natural/realistic (for me) just by double clicking the picture in the lighttable. For example the sky often looks clipped or flat/washed out in the jpeg but in darktable I got some fine details and some blue. And this just with the default settings. (But I am just a hobbyist and shooting landscapes most of the time) Thank you very much for the great work!!!

Aesthetics are acquired so what looks good for you is influenced by the visual culture you have. But there is a long standing habit in digital photography to push all sliders to 200 % and enjoy the neon colours and exaggerated contrast and sharpness. When this is your visual culture, darktable's defaults are really dull.

[@lphilpot01]

Excellent video and explanation. I'm sure I'll benefit by watching it again, since although I understand "parts and pieces" there are still many holes in my knowledge. But it's making more sense as I go. On one side of things there's the science, and on the other side there's the process of constantly re-training fallible human perception. This is definitely a case where often "perception does NOT equal reality". 🙂

The main thing to understand is that darktable provides you with tools that make the image closer to reality. And closer to reality does not look better or closer to your colour memory, it just makes for a more reliable image editing workflow. To make colour look better, you actually need to shift them to something less realistic.

[@rvrnnr987]

I set my camera so that the .jpg filter is essentially turned off. No boost to anything, no sharpening, no HDR -- yet when I import a RAW, the image will be 5 stops underexposed. An image that is slightly underexposed will open in darktable as essentially a black space. I can't figure out why. Nikon D7500.

You can't set the JPG filter off, they are always there and applying some sort of tone curve that essentially brightens.

[@APerson-jf2md]

Thanks for yet another great video! Very informative as all the others. But at 32:13 I'll have to disagree: A modern camera might (and very likely already does) apply a whole machine learning model with millions of parameters to your image - and that with 20..30fps without breaking a sweat. While a lookup table is a very nice analogy, I would guess that modern cameras do A LOT more that simply applying a lookup table.

Do you have any reference to an AI algo that can process 20 FPS without a GPU powered at at least 60 W ? Because I have never seen that. 20 FPS means less than 50 ms of processing per picture, and just a simple RGB space conversion on a 8 cores @4 GHz CPU at about 40 W takes about 15-20 ms. By RGB space conversion, I mean a 3×3 matrice × vector product, aka simple algebra in 3D. AI algos are typically MUCH heavier than this, and having them run at 20 FPS on such weak CPU × power supply just sounds impossible to me.

[@APerson-jf2md]

@ There are IP cores for e.g. Xilinxs FPGAs that run at

[@BilloBob1231]

Hi thank you very much these are awesome videos

[@reesewilson]

40:08 Darktable 4's new UCS 22 color space supposedly "compensates for the Helmholtz-Kohlraush effect"

I'm aware, I was in the process of designing the dt UCS 22 when I recorded this video.

[@reesewilson]

@ I suspected as much, this comment was more for future viewers. Thanks for your contribution

[@ThabaniPhoto]

Preserve Chrominance is not under the Filmic RGB tab is darktable 4.4.2. where do I find it?

[@ntsarb]

Excellent video. There are only a couple of points where I kind of disagreed: the LUT itself is a function f(x)=y, it's called a discrete function (as opposed to a continuous function) but it's still a function. Second, while a LUT is a very simple technique, it may have been created using colour science, which means that by applying such a 3D LUT you would -indirectly- be taking advantage of colour science. Very interesting discussion about the human perception of colour and luminance; I'm new in the field (as an amateur photographer) and I was very surprised that no comprehensive study involving a sufficiently large and qualitative sample space hasn't been undertaken and/or led to better colour science instruments.Thanks for sharing, I'll be looking out for more of your informative videos.

[@tgcgg239]

Bonjour Aurélien, merci pour cette vidéo et pour ton travail sur darktable. Si je comprends bien, la méthode de préservation de la couleur dans filmic montre ses limites dans les scène avec des hautes lumières ecretées. J'ai pu remarquer moi même qu'il est difficile d'obtenir des couleurs agréable sur un coucher de soleil par exemple. Mettre la préservation de la couleur sur "no" dans ce genre de cas me paraît alors le bon choix tant en terme de simplicité que de rendu. Ma question est : cette limitation a t elle une chance de changer ? Ou est ce une limitation inhérente aux méthodes de préservation de la couleur ? Merci de ta réponse

Bonjour, la préservation des chromaticités n'a pas de limite, elle fait simplement ce qu'on lui demande : préserver les couleurs. Ce qui veut dire qu'elle préserve aussi bien les couleurs valides que les couleurs invalides. La solution est donc de corriger les couleurs invalides plus tôt dans le pipe avec un outil de reconstruction. Pour obtenir des couleurs plus agréables, il faut passer par la balance couleur après avoir réglé correctement la calibration des couleurs. Ce n'est pas au niveau de filmique qu'on règle les couleurs, c'est beaucoup trop tard dans le pipeline et c'est précisément fait pour laisser les couleurs inchangées. Il est toujours possible de désactiver la préservation des couleurs de filmique, mais c'est déconseillé parce que, en dépit de l'apparente simplicité, derrière on va le payer en terme de fiabilité et de prédictibilité des filtres de couleur. Il est beaucoup plus simple et robuste de séparer les étapes de traitement (correction couleur technique puis correction couleur artistique et finalement mappage des couleurs vers l'écran) que d'essayer de tout faire en une fois, même ça a l'air de rajouter plus d'étapes. C'est la différence entre aller vite et aller loin.

[@7xppgngrmj22jhx7enubvnw5grndiy]

Would it be possible to do something similar to "clip highlights" but taking into account the real white balance?

[@themagicexe220]

Why do DT colours look like shit? Let me explain why your brain is shit using this paper from the 50's haha Aurélien you're the best!

[@sunesnigel]

i would not like to phrase it like you're title but I have had problems matching my JPGs from my previous Fuji X-T2. Anyhow the more I work with the program the faster I get the result I want, and I rarely want the JPG result. I do have to work more with filmic though, or I tend to avoid it since it takes a lot of tinkering to get each picture right. I will try these techniques you showed here. You're doing an awesome job Aurélien.

[@v2gbob]

Thanks for your detailed videos and all of the great work you have done on the dt project, Aurélien! I print my photos and I have been fairly happy with my prints but I am now trying to squeeze all of the gamut I can out of them. I'm confused about two of the modules in dt and the manual is of no help. Does the 'profile' setting in lighttable's export module override the "export profile' setting in darkroom's output color profile module? For example: If the dr output color profile is set to Adobe RGB and the lt export profile is set to linear Rec2020 RGB, will the exported 16-bit tiff have an Adobe sRGB profile or will the gamut be expanded to linear Rec2020 RGB by lt's export module? Or, if I want an exported 16-bit tiff with a linear Rec2020 color profile do both modules have to be set to linear Rec2020 RGB? I assumed that 'image settings' in the lt export module meant that the dr output color profile would be respected and if I changed the lt export module to a different profile the resulting file would be created with the export module's profile settings regardless of what dr's output setting was. Is that correct?

Yes, I never understood why you could choose the output space in the output color profile module since it gets overwritten at export time with whatever color space you set in that export box. Simply discard the output color profile module, the only thing that matters is what you set in the export widget.

[@v2gbob]

@ Thanks, so much, for the reply!

[@jimschmidt7303]

Science can be brutally honest. Thanks for the video.

[@MarcusPocus]

moi aussi j'aimerais une version française pour une meilleure compréhension!

[@PortfolioAlanDave]

Thanks !

[@peterpiper0815]

For new users this might feel like the 'red pill or blue pill' scene 😁

[@pardaillac]

J'ai du mal à suivre, j'espère une version française…

[@mattcameronvideo]

34:50 😂🥰

[@ryanstark2350]

Lenses effect colour a lot, especially older ones but that is part of their character. For example, I have a Zeiss Contax Distagon 28mm which creates vibrant greens when it is sunny whereas some other lenses create more dirty greens and probably more realistic. Some vintage lenses have much more sudbued colour and contrast. I select lenses depending on the effect I want so it's rarely exactly like the original scene.

Did you try calibrating your sensor with old and new/neutral lenses ? I would be interested to see the quantitative difference between both.

[@ryanstark2350]

@ I have never done any kind scientific analysis of this although it might be useful for post processing purposes. I have lots of old vintage lenses and there are dramatic differences in colour and contrast. Probably with newer lenses you would not notice this as much. Some of the vintage lenses are very low contrast but this can be a useful effect. Some have poor colour rendition but excel at black ad white. It would probably be a good idea to create presets in Darktable designed for each lens.

[@ryanstark2350]

I just came across your channel which is great because I use Darktable and I will be able to understand the various modules better now. Since I use these old lenses, post processing is a huge part of the workflow.

[@cowboy6591]

At 25:00 minutes in; You talk allot about my problem, I call it the P.E.B.C.A.G. virus !! It stands for , Problem Exists Between Camera And Ground !! .

[@duszeksmsaczek6394]

Cool French accent.

[@tkarlmann]

I have a better question for you: "Why do Darktable reviewers choose such awful images to then discuss?" Could we, just perhaps, show Darktable, perish the thought, working with an actual Human Being -- like a Portrait? You do not help by spending 50 minutes apparently stemming from two terrible images. First: ANY camera (Processing software) that cannot take a photo of sky & clouds needs to thrown in the trash! Second: The very next time one of my Wedding Clients wants a photograph of them using a flamethrower, I'll revisit this video!