darktable ep 042 - The Color Balance module

[@MrsJaydot]

Unfortunately I can't like this twice :). Liked it about a year ago, then walked away from dt because it was all so frustrating. But I'm back, and I think I'm getting the hang of it now... It was very good to view this video again, now my understanding of dt is somewhat better. Thanks!

[@audio2u]

No worries! Glad it helped... Eventually! 😃

[@1290DR]

I was looking for the name of this look and a method how to achieve it for a pretty long time - this video taught me in two ways therefor! Thanks so much for all your work. You are one of the gems that give youtube the value of an educational plattform

[@audio2u]

Thank you for the kind words! Glad the video was helpful.

[@Giles29]

You can do it with the Split Toning module as well if you have a picture that doesn't need you to do anything to the midtones.

[@philsilverman7431]

Fantastic explanation and tutorial Bruce, greatly appreciated once again.

[@audio2u]

Thanks Phil!

[@JeanLucLacroix]

Nice tutorial, thanks. At 21:37 you can undo the auto optimizers with a simple ctrl-z, at least in 2.6.3. Also, for some reason, the documentation recommends to start with the slope (highlights) and work your way up to the offset (shadows), another reason to reverse the order of how the three groups are displayed in that module as you rightly stated at 11:00. Keep these nice tutorials coming.

[@rckeith]

Great video. I was a lightroom user and looked at darktable some time ago but was a little overwhelmed with all the sliders. I bought Luminar 3 but it just doesn't do it for me. So decided to revisit darktable. You videos make it very easy to understand. I was watching your white balance video and it was nice to see that beach shot of Streaky Bay. I lived there around 1965 which bought back some memories. I was only 9 at the time. Left Australia in 68 but have soft spot for it. I'm retouching some old scanned photos and would be nice to see your workflow on the subject. Thanks for a great series of videos. Some KZbinrs are just too quick. These are perfect 👌

[@audio2u]

Thanks Keith! Glad you're finding them helpful. Streaky Bay was awesome. Part of a great road trip I will remember fondly until my dying breath. Me, my wife and our son, 21 days, 10,000 km from Gosford to Perth and back (with a few little detours here and there!).

[@dirkosswald3712]

I followed all the episodes and did learn a lot about DT, thank you very much. But with all the Douglas Adams references before I am very disappointed to not get one in this specific episode "42" ;-) Plese keep up the good work.

[@audio2u]

Haha! How did I miss that? #fail

[@marian13s]

Very well explained. Your tutorials are so instructive for me. Thank you so much for sharing them. Regards from Spain.

[@audio2u]

Thanks!

[@FrankWalsh]

Intimidating module, and hard to even just "play" with because there are so many dependencies. Thanks for a very good look at it.

[@audio2u]

No worries, Frank!

[@petertoone3088]

Thanks. Intimidated by the quality of the portrait but once overcoming that, found your tutorial just what I needed.

[@audio2u]

Thanks mate..... On both counts! 😃

[@nickolasvassou9889]

First of all I would like to thank and congratulate you for these videos. I would like to add that I have used this module in b+w images. It can be used to change any tone of grey that corresponds to a colour with exceptional results. And that's became easier after the update because there are more option to accomplish the task. Thanks a lot again.

[@audio2u]

Thanks Nickolas! I have to say (don't know if you've seen the episode on the Color Zones module?) that I am loving the CZ module for my B+W processing these days. But that's the great thing about dt (as I keep repeating in my videos).... there are multiple ways to achieve the same/similar results. All comes down to your own personal workflow preferences! :)

[@nickolasvassou9889]

@@audio2u Yes you are right about that (many ways to do what you want). And yes I saw the video about CZ and I use it a lot but I find that with this module I get a little more about detailed interference. Anyway it still is, as you say, a matter of personal preference. Thanks again.

[@michaelremski8295]

Very good analogy with the audio. That's why I like analog instead of digital :)

[@TheReggiety]

The analogy between gamut and audio is perfect. But in order to use a larger color space you ought to use a monitor with a larger gamut than sRGB too. Else you're acting in blind flight - just like recording audio with reduced auditory sense. But … there is always another but :-) … monitors today are much better than professional monitors some years ago. I fail from all the clouds when I first saw my AdobeRGB photos on a retina monitor. btw your explanations are great.Sorry my English.

[@audio2u]

That's a great point about sRGB monitors!

[@giuliof.963]

Thank you for sharing! I think is one of the best video about the color balance module!

[@audio2u]

Thank you! 😃

[@leona_devon]

Thank you for covering that really complex module. Ya I had the same reaction to you, looked at it and through that's too complex and closed it again :)

[@emrg777]

One further comment I would add is that from the explanation in the DT Blog post and the section in the manual (both must reads to understand this module IMO) and some experimentation the use of the auto settings as Bruce was attempting to show us are clarified in the blog post. I think and I stand corrected they (the auto settings) are meant to be used in 2 ways...initially they are meant to be used with "no changes" made in the module. They will take a box that includes the whole image and do the math and come up with what they believe are the optimized setting for luma and removing color casts....if you tweak some sliders previous to selecting it if so then I think you will alter the intended auto output. The second way is from the patches and if you use the droppers for both factor and hue for shadows highlights and mids...you will notice that the title of the auto functions actually changes to optimize from patches so now it uses the patches you have chosen to make changes to the image wrt luma and color. The result can of course then be tweaked after by the sliders and if you are trying to achieve a targeted color grading you might not actually use auto settings but it serves to show the module has this duality where it will use the whole image or patches that you select to define the shadows and highlights and mids...and then it will apply the curve determined by the settings at the start of the module. Also it is mentioned that the optimizers only work for the slope,offset , power model and not the legacy model that has been carried along and that the fulcrum is the cross over point in that above it values are calculated with I think it said a linear curve and below it a power function curve and hence the use of power in the name of the model type used.....There are some good details in there and I think Bruce did a great job but the nuances are definitely covered should anyone be interested I highly suggest that they take a moment to read it to be able to use the module effectively...

[@audio2u]

Awesome, Todd! I was going by the manual linked from the website which did not have all the new bits covered. I don't know when this module got upgraded, but clearly the web version of the manual is/was not up to date.

[@emrg777]

@@audio2u I think it came out with 2.6...though the manual was not updated right away. I found info first in the blog for the release and then later noticed more information in the manual about the inner workings and the math...shame as I am sure you could have worked in some good points even the fact that the optimizer only works really with one model and the conversion from rgb to lab and back again can alter the colours...etc....Its a technical read for sure but I think is only 3 or 4 pages....I have found selecting the patches can really create some dramatic improvements in some image....admittedly some dramatic fails too but the cool thing is you can just keep moving it around by redrawing your box and you can land on some awesome image improvements...

[@JPAll]

Thanks for this series about the Darktable .....

[@audio2u]

No dramas! 😃

[@davidknowles5519]

Cheers Bruce you have made the module intelligible thanks

[@audio2u]

Thanks David!

[@leadbetter1349]

Great explanation, thank you!

[@franciscocribari]

Excellent content and presentation. Thank you.

[@audio2u]

No worries!

[@SebastianMarelli]

Would be cool if you could take a snapshot whenever you're going for two different approaches/modules/techniques and then compare the two in the end (if that's even possible and not to complicated with snapshots). And thanks for the Video!

[@audio2u]

Yep, that is possible. Although the better approach is to duplicate the xmp, and have two renditions side by side.

[@SebastianMarelli]

@@audio2u Now that you say it - Yeah probably the better and easier approach.

[@georgiosgkotsis2250]

thank you for your video, very helpful

[@audio2u]

You are welcome! Glad it was useful. :)

[@weekendwarrior-es]

Hello Bruce, greetings from Madrid Spain. I'm reviewing your videos trying to refresh some concepts and I wanted to ask you what program do you use to edit your videos? Thank you for you excelent work. I think you have one of the most compherensive darktable tutorials out there.

[@audio2u]

Thanks mate! Since around episode 030 (or thereabouts), I've been using Davinci Resolve. Admittedly, I'm still editing on windoze because I have some audio plugins (VST) I just can't live without, and I haven't yet worked out how to get them working on linux. One day..... Glad you like my videos. Cheers.

[@JulesMoyaert_photo]

Bruce, another analogy for color spaces could be derived from a French expression (Qui peut le plus, peut le moins): he who can [do] more, can [do] less. By the way, thank you!

[@audio2u]

No worries! 😃

[@quasarsphere]

In a very real way, another method of split toning. Awesome!

[@audio2u]

Yep! I keep saying it... darktable offers multiple ways to skin a cat! 😃

[@joaovtaveira]

22:31 I'm pretty sure it's exactly that. Before 2.6.0 version there was much less features then there is now.

[@dmytromalevskyi400]

That is a every nice picture!

[@audio2u]

Thanks Dmytro!

[@lylestavast7652]

dying laughing about your orange/teal observation... remembering zoom effect during exposure that was the rage in the early 70's... lol or selective color from about 8 years ago...

[@audio2u]

Oh yeah, the zoom pull!

[@philsilverman7431]

@@audio2u it still is in some wedding photographer's repertoire :-)

[@Giles29]

Zoom pull can be pretty flashy depending on what you want. Most people don't want it now of course.

[@petergulliver3225]

Thank you Bruce. I have been using Colour Balance thinking I was doing things right. But seeing you explain everything you know about it has made see how wrong I was. Your explanation is very lucid. I noticed your histogram clipping at both ends. Is this something you don't worry too much about or do you correct it later on? Also I have started using the gamut check and adjust the image accordingly so the gamut check doesn't highlight anything. Am I doing the right thing? I've started doing this since I calibrated my monitor, which is a bog standard AOC. Can I ask you one more question please? Is your computer a Linux rig? If so do you have a graphics card? I ask this because my rig has got core i5 with integrated gpu and I want to upgrade to ryzen 7 2700/2700x and the gpu is confusing me, the more I look the more I get confused. I'm sorry for asking all these questions and taking up your time, thank you.

[@audio2u]

Can't answer right now. Late for work. Will answer later today.

[@petergulliver3225]

OK Bruce, thanks for letting me know.

[@audio2u]

My histogram was clipping, but I was not really focused on that while I was doing this video. I probably should be more concious of that stuff, as new veiwers might think I'm careless. Which is not the case. It just wasn't what I was trying to explain in that video. Good point. Gamut check is always a good idea. Something I should probably do more often, but then, I use the histogram as a gamut check (any colour reaching to the top of the histogram is probably clipping). Yes, I'm on Linux Mint, and am running a 2700x CPU, 32GB DDR4 2400 RAM and a GTX1050Ti graphics card.

[@petergulliver3225]

Great stuff, thank you Bruce.

[@FirenikoTube]

Thank you. Very usefull. Keep going. For me will be interesting such theme as using modules for general photos from smartphones and simple cameras (JPEG). I tried to make like in lessions but JPEG has very short range for corrections .

[@audio2u]

Correct. Jpeg only has 8 bits of data per pixel which means your ability to make severe adjustments is extremely curtailed. It's why I only shoot raw. My a7iii gives me 14 bit raw files which gives a lot more latitude for post processing.

[@fotografie-joerglang]

Thank you for this video. Great!

[@audio2u]

Cheers

[@oscar664]

I will be interesting to do get the same result using a different module in Darktable.

[@mpdesjardinsable]

But how do you fix the skin tone and her face being orange, the same color as her coat? I can't figure how to fix skin tone after playing with color saturation of the photo as a whole.... thanks. :)

[@audio2u]

You might need to rewatch the four videos on masks! 😃 It's a combination of drawn plus parametric masking.

[@Bastian-Remi]

Would love for you to do an example video of how to best recover shadows in an image without getting halo effects or blowing out the highlights! This is a major pain point for me and leaves me strongly debating switching back to Lightroom. I can send you a raw image if you care to see what you can get out of it!

[@audio2u]

Send me a raw file, Bastian. I'll see what I can do.

[@emrg777]

Bastian go to the Darktable facebook page there is a thread from yesterday with lots of good input following a question about shadows and image submitted by one of the group...Bruce monitors the group as do others that can provide tips

[@Bastian-Remi]

@@emrg777 if it was the post with the cubs then the answer isn't really clear beyond possibly trying something in GIMP which isn't darktable related, or cropping which is a poor solution to the original question

[@MotoFotoe]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHLMgmxnmbt1g5Y

[@MotoFotoe]

www.darktable.org/2012/02/using-lowpass-filter-to-recover-shadows/

[@emrg777]

Bruce There is some good info in the blog post for 2.6...they do a short run through on the module from what I recall the power of it is to select patches with the pickers for what you are choosing to be shadows midtones etc and then you can manipulate those...lets you for example remove different colour casting from different parts of the image...its about 2/3 or the way through the blog post www.darktable.org/2018/12/darktable-26/ They use examples for multiple WB corrections and for colour grading....HTH's

[@tnargs57]

This is very different in DT3.0. When I select "Slope, Offset, Power" mode, the sliders don't say factor/red/green/blue, they say factor/hue/saturation. cheers

[@audio2u]

Right. I guess that module got updated. Thanks for the heads up.

[@Franco-px3xx]

In DT 3.0 just below 'mode' you'll see "color control sliders", just change the HSL option to RGBL and you'll get the factor/red/green/blue sliders.

[@JillesvanGurp]

This module definitely changed a lot with 2.6; it only had one mode before this. In my opinion it's always been a bit of a UX nightmare and more so with the recent changes. Part of the problem is the confusing terminology; slope and lift are meaningless to me. Shadows I get. They seem to be used as synonyms. But are they the same or are there differences? This looks to me like the developers are just being inconsistent. Likewise, fulcrum is not a helpful term either. If there is one, why not show the curve? I agree the ordering is not helpful. Finally, slider UX is just awful in Darktable and this module is all sliders. But thanks for explaining the ins and outs. It cleared up a few mysteries for me and I can now at least imagine me using it where previously I just ignored this module. I think I still prefer the color zones module as a UI, which if you think about it does more or less the same things by allowing you to work on hue/saturation and hue/lightness separately. I find that more intuitive than this module. What seems to be missing in this module is an LAB mode. I often end up tweaking colors using the tone curve in LAB mode. Not that this module needs more complexity but like you said, there more ways that lead to Rome.

[@audio2u]

Yeah, if you look at the screen shot of this module from the 2.4.x help, you can see that it had only one mode of operation. But the link to the equivalent part of the 2.7 documentation shows that it has been updated. darktable.gitlab.io/doc/en/color_group.html?fbclid=IwAR36wRJkgD4cojEta1-PFA4-vfHtTzN8i25Jz_EKxZB8c_2rnlgKdufJjbg#color_balance

[@emrg777]

Below from the manual....its still not straightforward but if you take the time to read it will make sense...its all tied back the to the math used to create the changes...I think the math is the real power and for some the weakness of DT...knowing the math used and how it connects to the settings that you can alter give you extreme power but for others extreme frustration as they just want simple "fix my shadows" sliders....in the end you can never be all things to all people and those that like the tweaking and fine tuning will love it that others will hate it and take a pass i guess.... Contrast and Contrast fulcrum The contrast slider allows to increase the luminance separation. The fulcrum value defines the luminance value that will not be affected by the contrast correction, so the contrast will roll over the fulcrum. Luminance values above the fulcrum will be amplified almost linearly. Luminance values below the fulcrum value will be compressed with a power function (creating a toe). This correction comes after the output saturation and is applied on all RGB channels separately, so hues and saturations might not be preserved in case of dramatic settings (shadows might be resaturated, highlights might be desaturated, and some color shift is to be expected).

[@audio2u]

Thanks Todd!

[@stephenward5133]

Decided to revisit this video because I got directed to an article (written by aurelienne but translated) about which modules work in RGB and how we should be avoiding the Lab modules because of artefacts that can be caused in processing. It makes very interesting reading. pixls.us/articles/darktable-3-rgb-or-lab-which-modules-help/ The only thing is you get used to one thing while you’re learning only to have a curve ball thrown at you that shows you how poor your technique is!!

[@audio2u]

Sounds about right! :)

[@joaovtaveira]

0:05 NOOOOOOO! Please don't do it in any way, poor and harmless animals!

[@audio2u]

Bwahaha!

[@martinbarinka3397]

Hi check out new development version of documentation here darktable.gitlab.io/doc/en/color_group.html#color_balance