Darktable Episode 71: Adjustment and usage of tone equalizer

[@ViktorPankraz]

Your videos are a gold mine. I'm working through all of them. Thank you so much for not just demonstrating but also explaining a bit of the "science" behind all of it!

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

This is a major clue - the transitions acquired with this dual method are gold!

[@julibito2328]

Thank you. Since the tone equalizer is part of dt, I use it in most developments of my pictures. Often also in multiple instances. But till now, if used drawn masks to select and control parts of the picture. Now I've realised how to work with the mask of the tone equalizer. It will be very helpful. So I've to move it to my b/w developments. Hope to improve them.

[@bernym4047]

The very best demonstration of mask adjustment to isolate parts of the luminosity to adjust without influencing other parts. thank you so very much. I will attempt very high contrast images with more confidence.

[@maciejbogacz5010]

Herzlichen Dank !!! Noch drei oder vier Mal anschauen, dann geht's hoffentlich ins Blut :-))

[@GrahamAtDesk]

I'm just under half way through, but I've already learned enough to make editing the RAW files from last weekend's trip an obvious choice (I was previously going to go with my out of camera JPEGs, and learn how to get the best out of darktable later…) Fantastic demo Boris, thank you!

[@vho2010]

Wow, great video again. I enjoyed how you changed the different guided filters for improving the photos. I am looking forward to seeing more lessons from you. Thank you.

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Oh, this is a new episode, thank you. Very timely for me, as I just had the problem with a larger tone range than the screen could show. Everything is under control now, and I am getting more and more pleased with Darktable.

[@Zuzzt]

You are so good. Even if I had to play the video at 0.5 speed to be able to follow your mouse movements I am so thankful that you do explain things so very well.

[@bernym4047]

I have a very high contrast image that had some blown highlights in the clouds. I made several attempts to edit it using several instances of exposure with many complicated drawn and parametric masks. I was very frustrated with the results then someone suggested trying the tone equaliser. I was reluctant to try it as I have never managed any great success with it. Then your video appeared. I watched it four times and then the penny dropped. I used two instances of the TE module, adjusting the inbuilt mask first to target the sky and then to target the foreground. I was quite pleased with the result and done with far fewer steps than previous attempts. So a very big thank you for this excellent video. It's given me a huge boost in confidence.

[@ccoopify]

Thank you for the refresher of the Tone Equalizer and the multiple instance approaches.

[@stefanbalmus1659]

I'm new to Darktable and after trying it out a bit (coming form LR/ C1) I was just about to give up on it due to what I thought was its inability to recover highlights nicely. This was very useful, thank you!

[@andrewwilkin1923]

Hi Boris, excellent tutorial! Lots of new things to try out with Tone Equaliser. Many thanks.

[@FairMiles]

Very nice trick of applying tone equalizer with+without detail preservation to enhance local contrast! 🏆

[@stephenward5133]

Even more detail on Tone Equaliser, another amazing video. thanks Boris! I will keep watching.

[@ShootingAndReloading]

Fantastic tutorial. I learned a LOT! :)

[@vancouverbluesea]

Very detailed and informative! Thank you! I find especially beneficial to know the extra settings (and behavior) for different algorithms. It is very nice that there is comparison how the changes affect the mask and also the image.

[@sherebiahtishbi]

I am learning so much Boris! Your videos are truly amazing! Please keep posting.

[@taylorr7010]

Great demonstration, thankyou

[@arnaudm.7404]

Another best episode, i learn a lot about Tone equalizer. Thanks you so much Boris

[@lxhk3595]

Its double fun developing my pictures since I took over Boris approach. Analyze the problems to solve in a photo, choose the dt tools to solve it and go try your best.

thank you, Boris! this is exactly what I needed!

[@emmypuss4533]

Super. Your videos are a pleasure to watch and learn from. Thanks.

[@ArminHirmer]

very interesting, thank you

[@fuhen9719]

that video was so helpful, thank you so much

[@huubdegroot]

Soo many thanks !!!! Love the complete explanation !!!

[@kritmil00]

Excellent and thank you for sharing!

[@BlogOneChai]

Very clear and very useful indeed. Thanks a lot !

[@krism20]

Thank you Boris. U are DarkMaster ;)

[@bartylobethal8089]

Thank you Boris. I think this will really help my processing.

[@Zuzzt]

I like your videos. They are so good.

[@hansgouda8593]

Thanks, learned a lot again :)

[@michalkvasnicka3290]

very useful. many thanks.

[@gje2122a]

Thank you.

[@jorgedoamaral7287]

Thank you for this Great video, your approach is very subtle, have you planned to make video on weak or how to obtain a rendering similar to analog film

[@overproppedrob8956]

Watching your videos feels a bit like cheating. Vielen Dank dafür!

[@tanjakahlo5255]

Hi Boris! Can you use the dark theme in DT for video tuts? Thx. 😊

[@radist02]

Hi Boris, thank you very much a lot for your highly useful videos on DT. I have a question regarding this lesson. At 37:55 you increase highlights brilliance in color balance rgb. Some highlights on the building face lose the details because of that. To bring them back you create another instance of tone equalizer and lower the highlights. So my question is - why increase the highlights brilliance in the first place if later you have to bring them down?

[@s7habo]

The brilliance slider increases the GLOBAL contrast in this area (the difference between mid-gray and highlights becomes stronger in terms of brightness). This makes the differences between the gray area and highlights on the wall even more obvious. The wall no longer looks so "flat". However, due to the strong compression of filmic, which has the strongest (logarithmic) effect in the HIGHEST highlights, you lose the details (LOCAL contrast or texture) in this narrow highest brightness range. The most heavily lit areas of the wall completely lose detail. To get them back, they have to be treated separately, using two additional instances of tone equalizer. With the first instance you first reduce the brightness of these highlights with the detail preservation algorithm (EGIF - Exposure Independent Guided Filter) SWITCHED ON. This way the details will not be lost, which generally happens when differences in brightness are equalized. In other words, with EGIF you lose a bit of global BUT NOT local contrast. With another instance you TURN OFF the EIGF algorithm and increase the brightness of highlights again. This brings the global contrast back with INCREASED local contrasts, which you have, so to speak, "additionally gained" with the first instance. In this way, the local contrasts in highlights have been artificially "enhanced" to such an extent that they are not completely lost through strong compression by filmic in this area.

[@radist02]

@@s7haboThanks a lot for the detailed explanation. I'm wondering had you used Sigmoid maybe the workflow could be simpler since it does not lose the contrast as much as Filmic? Personally I prefer my workflow to be as simple as possible while giving decent results.

[@s7habo]

@@radist02 I've been using Sigmoid recently because there is a new improved version adapted from Blender's AgX. This will be integrated in version 4.6 of darktable, which is coming soon.

[@radist02]

@@s7haboI'm using the dev version of darktable built from the latest sources. I must say improvements in the coming version 4.6 are great. I spend less time editing my photo and get good results (at least to my eyes :) Many thanks again for showing how to use darktable to its full potential!

[@Fischbroetchen1]

vielen dank. Man mache ich vieles falsch.

[@wegder]

Wow

[@lystenclosely752]

Can we can get a tutorial on exporting to different apps, is there a way to compress the photo without ruining detail? And what are all the different file formats? I’m new to all this. Thank you for the tutorial vids!

[@s7habo]

For exporting photos from darktable there is already a very good tutorial, which I highly recommend: kzbin.info/www/bejne/en7QqHR7oauko6s

[@lystenclosely752]

@@s7habo thank you!!