Exploring Darktable: Filmic, Sigmoid & Multiple Graduated Filters, Noise Reduction Masking

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CHAPTERS - click Show More
Exploring Darktable: Filmic, Sigmoid & Multiple Graduated Filters, Noise Reduction Masking
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:15 The "Before & After" Bit
05:16 Getting Back to Neutral?
10:54 The FILMIC Module (Basic)
15:45 The SIGMOID Module (Basic)
17:21 ISO 12646 Viewing (really useful)
18:56 Graduated Density Filters (powerful tool but generally UNDERSOLD!
25:18 Profiled Denoise & Parametric Shadow Masking (Simple)
30:36 Sharpening with Simple Parametric Masking
33:56 The Final Creative bit!
After a few weeks of playing with Darktable, and looking beyond the things I dislike about the GUI, here's just one example of why I really do 'rate' this free raw processor. There are things you can do in Darktable that simply can not be done anywhere else while keeping ultimate image quality.
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[@AndyAstbury]

========================================================================= NOTE: Following a comment from Todd, I've had a partial mind shift, and if you want to make the neutralising changes that I show in this video, switch the working space to 'linearProPhoto' instead of the gamma corrected one I use in this video. Use the gamma corrected one in the output profile, if you want to maintain a ProPhoto workflow in Photoshop. =========================================================================

[@kimbeijar5702]

Hoping for more videos on darktable from you sir. They are so good!

[@richardhayes7812]

Timing of this perfect. Want to get into post. I watched a lot of your raw therapee, loved it but couldn't get it. I've been looking at DT for a good while and your video is really encouraging on so many fronts. Thank you.

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad it helped Richard. If you have any 'request' for DT tools/modules in a video, just let me know!

[@emrg777]

Middle grey is hidden for a reason...the adjustment that you are doing with that is meant to be done with exposure...basically in your image the general approach would be to expose the rocks to be well exposed and likely around middle gray and then add filmic....when you redefine middle gray then it impacts how filmic can map the DNR with white and black...

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Nice introduction for a new disciple. Darktable is not just a raw processor - it's an editing laboratory - and we have to be aware of the danger of mixing the wrong ingredients - or trying to neutralize errors with unknown components ... that's what makes Darktable so exciting and secretive - that it soon becomes your preferred rainy and sunny day woman. Mama, will she tear your little boy apart!? - Exiting stuff.

[@GaryParris]

darktable has been my default for a few years now, can't recommend it enough to anyone!

[@emrg777]

Great video Andy...you have a wonderful personality and it really shines when you make those videos.....

[@AndyAstbury]

Wow, thank you Todd, much appreciated.

[@emrg777]

Tip ...using your mouse scroll wheel...if it supports clicks ...one click goes to 100 percent a second goes to 200 and a third take you back to where you were.... wrt sharpening ...its almost a depreciated module or maybe used by those with slower hardware... the presest in Diffuse and sharpen will blow you away...often only needing a tweak in iterations...but they do take some cpu....

[@AndyAstbury]

My mouse 'wheel' is collar on my trackball Todd, but it's a good tip for others with a more normal mouse! D&S - when I first opened it I put in -1% in the orders and tapped in 10 iterations - it blew my socks off, but I need to understand it more before I mention that in a public video.

[@atachualpas]

Thank you very much, excellent as always!

[@AndyAstbury]

Thank you too!

[@emrg777]

For grad density often DT users will use the exposure module with the drawn mask graduated filter element.... This is easier to control... as a bonus you can introduce a curve to the shape filter element, rotate it intuitively and easily see the boundary of the effect... but more importantly this is linear processing whereas the GD module is a display referred module and introduces a non linear processing step

[@AndyAstbury]

Exposure output linear/scene referred, GF non-liner/display referred - point taken Todd (I need to pay attention to the pop-ups that show when hovering over a module header)!

[@lphilpot01]

I'm glad you mentioned about the curve... I was thinking that functionality was in GD but I couldn't find it. Goes to show what happens when I stop paying close attention for bit... LOL

[@emrg777]

@@AndyAstbury Well in addition to being linear if done from exposure the mask GD widget shows more information and is more configurable...and best is you can use it in any module to apply your effect in a graduated way...the ability to bend it comes in handy at times as well to get just the coverage you need out at the edges or pull it up or down.... its just a far more intuitive way to do it... basically the widget is a bit like the GD overlay that you see in RT

[@GaryParris]

I love Darktable, stopped using adobe products as my default, now it's Darktable and gimp if i need to but rarely do!

[@emrg777]

Darktable profiles are unbounded and this can be useful..not sure if your's are and it should be a linear profile in DT as it attempts to keep things linear until you get to the display transforms... DT has a linear prophoto profile..... I would at least compare this with yours

[@AndyAstbury]

Hi Todd, point taken. Switching between ProPhoto and linearProPhoto, I do notice a change (tone expansion) in the right side of the histogram with Filmic turned on. My attitude is somewhat 'agricultural', but anything that adds bulk to the top end of my histogram without inducing clipping, is a good thing.

[@Sonya_Makepeace]

Why do you output files as ProFoto? I used to do this in Lightroom, but it results in images looking muddy when viewed on a standard RGB monitor or even with my Adobe RGB monitor. So I would only export to Adobe RGB or sRGB for normal use.

[@lphilpot01]

darktable is a seemingly bottomless well at times -- both in terms of capabilities and mysteries. 🙂 I'm at best a moderate-level user and have lately been using ART, but I try to somewhat keep up. You may well already be aware but if not, Boris Hadjukovic's tutorials (kzbin.info/aero/PLmZmCIhOC2Frt6Wq3gc0-egOy_P1sXjau) are a wealth of darktable information from a master user. Just be aware of older-version context, particularly before v3 and sort of before v3.8. The earlier tutorials are video only (no audio) so they're a little more challenging to absorb. But I suspect you'd start "in the middle", as it were, anyway so that's probably not a factor. Virtually all of his tutorials consist of him describing what he does, as he does it. He has in-depth tutorials focusing on specific modules, in particular color balance rgb and the (complex but very powerful) diffuse and sharpen, which can apparently do several other modules' work: sharpening, local contrast, etc.

[@AndyAstbury]

Hi Len, I just can't get a build of ART that runs well on my Mac sadly. Diffuse and Sharpen reminds me a little of Wavelets in RT. Boris puts me to sleep, but will give his channel another view.

[@lphilpot01]

@@AndyAstbury Yeah, I'm no expert AT ALL on d&s... LOL. It seems more like "infrastructure" for other higher level functions, but it's powerful (a Swiss army knife). Boris is soft-spoken but very knowledgeable - He gives my rewind key a workout 🙂 Some of his more pointed tuts may be appropriate.

[@emrg777]

His last 10-20 are golden for sure..

[@GaryParris]

Aurélien PIERRE is the master

[@Andy-rk9mu]

welcome to the dark side