Raw Therapee Basics: Curves & Histogram

My Exclusive Membership Site: bit.ly/2SwaSZ6
In this video I take a look at Curves in Raw Therapee and compare the various curve type and curve mode options. I also show you a neat function of the versatile Raw Therapee Histogram.
#rawtherapee #tutorial #rawfile

[@AndyAstbury]

One thing I forgot to mention around the 20:00 mark - the 'Film-like' Curve mode is an Adobe algorithm originally designed for the Adobe DNG process, and it is the FIXED CURVE MODE in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw - you are stuck with it and the usual 'over-saturation' properties it applies to your images.

[@claudiomazzucchelli2838]

Love this guy. I'm new to Raw Therapee and was impressed by his way of explaining the curves.

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Claudio 🍻🍻

[@ricardozettl6713]

Thank you very much. It's the most deep tutorial series of RawTherapee so far. As I know.

[@AndyAstbury]

You're very welcome!

[@radudumitrescu1]

I'm loving your videos on RawTherapee. Chock-full of very good technical information and also entertaining.

[@AndyAstbury]

Thank you Radu 🍻👍

[@roelarends2803]

Very useful information !! Still a lot more to discover in RawTherapee !! Thank you very much.

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad it was helpful Roel.

[@msscoventry]

Having come to Raw Therapee after my old CS6/Camera Raw stopped working with MAC OS, I am finding your lessons very informative.

[@AndyAstbury]

Great to hear!

[@wazzaaa2098]

The best lessons online for the RawTherapy! Thank you very mutch for sharing your wisdom :)

[@AndyAstbury]

You're very welcome!

[@sm-xd1wr]

Hi Andy, I am now an exclusive user of GNU/Linux. I have left all proprietary software behind. For photography I use DigiKam, RT and GIMP. Your Curves & Histogram video has shown me that I was only scratching the surface of RT. Thank you for the short Master Class. I look forward to lots more.

[@nishanksaini10]

Thank you for this Andy! This is quite possibly the first video I've come across explaining the curves in RawTherapee in such detail, I had a blast watching it, can't wait to go through your other videos!

[@AndyAstbury]

You're very welcome!

[@Being_Joe]

Thanks again. Looking forward to watching the Lab Adjustments video.

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers as ever Jose 🍻🍻

[@hithere8753]

I'm new to this world but I appreciate your explanations.

[@djreleaf713]

thanks I'm learning so much from this

[@AndyAstbury]

You're so welcome!

[@astronomynotebook]

Your amazing....looking forward to “becoming very familiar with RT....thanks to you Andy😊

[@AndyAstbury]

Thank you 🍻🍻

[@oldlinkjo]

I’m so glad I have found your Chanel. Thank you so much for your videos, they make RT "easy" to use. Thanks again 👍👏

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad you like them Jose, you are most welcome🍻🍻

[@markrigg6623]

Great stuff as usual Andy. Unbelievably deep raw converter. For someone who likes to really finesse their images to the max it seems unbeatable. And learning to use it you learn all the things that go on under the hood in digital processing which I think can only make one a better photographer all round.👍👍👍👌

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Mark 🍻🍻 And don't forget to download the raw file if you haven't already. Yep, the better you understand something then the more proficient you become - a simple fact of life that some folk liken to evolution. But of course, everyone wants a preset nowadays, thinking it'll be a shortcut to greatness - poor deluded souls.

[@sin2099x]

Thank you very much Andy! I was one of the requesters of this video, very much satisfied and grateful Sir!

[@AndyAstbury]

Thank you Jorge 👍

[@wirefiddler1]

Andy. I am so pleased that you are doing these videos. I have wanted to try and get to grips with Raw T for some time and yours are the first decent tutorials I have come across. Keep up the good work.

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad you like them!

[@BushwhackingPhotography]

Great, informative video. Maybe you can do a detailed dive into the Chromacity histogram. The documentation on it is rather lacking.

[@1solorainforest]

Great instructions video !!! My photos with horribly tricky lighting of the jungle canopy looks stunning now! THANKS V MUCH !

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers 🍻🍻

[@jogendrajanga5967]

Thanks Andy. Really very informative video. Much appreciated.

[@thore7375]

Great video! Thanks for explaining how to use the two tone curves combined. I always struggled to match contrast and saturation in one curve with the same mode. Looking forward for more such detailed insights.

[@DalsPhotography]

Just found your channel this morning, you are amazing explaining a lot of stuff! Thank you and please keep going with this awsome program! Best regards from Uruguay!

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

It's a master's explanation. Thank you. And I happened to watch the "next", the L*a*b, video before this one, and that content is presented in a very understandable way too. The problem is to remember when and why this or that variant of the sliders should be used over the others.

[@AndyAstbury]

It's a little bit like a mechanics tool box; it contains more than one open ended 13mm spanner - some are straight, some angled, and some are bent. They all do the same job, but in different situations one will be better suited than the others!

[@Rnder72]

Thanks Andy, I have been using RT for a while but never got into the nuances of the histogram. Thanks for the clear explanation and some use scenarios. Looking forward to your L*a b* video.

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Rick, glad you liked it 🍻🍻

[@mvvishy]

Thank you Andy. I loved this.

[@AndyAstbury]

You are most welcome Vishy 👍🍻

[@raysissum]

Great video, thanks!

[@spidrespidre]

Hi Andy. Thank you so much for this video. You're my hero. It made perfect sense and covered the topic thoroughly. You even manage to pronounce 'look' correctly. I had been using Darktable, but it's overly complicated and too much to learn. The one thing that Raw Therapee fails on is lens correction, which is a problem for my Lumix FZ2000 (which isn't in the manual camera list even though the model is 5 years old now). I understand that settings can be imported via Adobe's DNG converter but it's not been a success for me, to date. I'm sure I'll work it out at some point.

[@WallyNowakowski]

Your videos are great by the way. I like the verbosity in your explanations.

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad you like them!

[@ulifischer1428]

Thanks for tackling the Lab module, I can't wait! It's one of my favourite (set of) tools in RT and I use it a lot for color and saturation control. Although I'm quite familiar with most tools I always learn something new about them from your videos. Cheers!

[@AndyAstbury]

Just recorded it Uli, need to edit it but it'll be a long one - 60 minutes plus!

[@ingoweyrich520]

Hi Andy, another great video. Very much appreciated!!!

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Ingo 🍻🍻

[@garysmalloneearth8527]

Great video Andy, most informative I've found so far on curves & histograms. I have a Bachelors degree in Photography from the Jurassic period of film 1980. I have had advance courses in the Zone System and Densitometry and taught a community university course in the Zone System. The world changed and I pursued other vocations. I would love to see you do an intermediate/advanced video on fine art Black & White processing.

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Gary 🍻🍻 A BA, alas I'm only a City & Guilds 744 from 1978 which puts me somewhere between Permian and Triassic 😢 Oh the hours I've spent measuring mono, E6 and C41 test strips on a TCX - in a lot of respects I miss those days greatly. Zone system is still as valid today as it ever was, though a lot of people seem to think their camera meter knows better - poor deluded fools. I've hinted at various B&W methods in other videos already, but I'm trying to build the channel at the moment and it won't get the view numbers - for instance kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnvYanx5gqaSpc0 - 6 months old and only 373 views 😢 Sad really because a lot of the time I'd rather work in B&W as colour 'just gets in the way'.

[@PerEng2405]

Brilliant inflight to using curves and understanding the difference between and why there is two curves. Much appreciated Andy (looking forward to your L*A*B video). That said I am not quite sure that the same logic on curves applies for the 'Before' respectively 'After' curves when working Black-and-White ?

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad you enjoyed it 👍 On the B&W side of things I do all my B&W work in Photoshop - layers, localised selections and masks make B&W conversions so much more precise.

[@PerEng2405]

@@AndyAstbury for various reasons I would prefer to be able to do all my editing in Rawtherapee and GIMP. If you at some point in time and for whatever reason should be overwhelmed by the desire to produce a monochrome youtube video you will be added to the first line in the first chapter on the first page in my Hero's Book :-)

[@mastert217]

Really glad I found your channel! Please keep the Raw Therapee videos coming! I have been using LR forever (well a long time anyway), with your videos, not only have I learned a great deal about RT, I have learned a great deal about processing in general. Looking into you're Patreon, are you planning to expand on RT for you're members? I really like how you go in depth, Thanks.

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers 🍻🍻 On the Patreon Exclusive side of things my members get whatever they ask for, sometimes they want community access videos and others ask for 1to1 videos - either way I try and ensure they get great VFM.

[@CWMcDonald]

Took away a lot from this one Andy. Thanks and looking forward to the LAB one :)

[@AndyAstbury]

You're welcome, glad you liked it 👍

[@OleksandrLemberg]

Great, great tutorial! Much appreciated, thank you! Instant subscribe :)

[@astronomynotebook]

Hi Andy, thank goodness for your videos...I do astrophotography and I need to know how to do masks well and easily...would you please do a detailed video on this? Could you just take a Tiff image of a sky object and demonstrate please.🌹❤️🌈

[@AndyAstbury]

Watch this video for Raw Therapee Astro Landscape Raw Processing kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGjYiaCCqrR9r7s - the RT processing starts at around 03:50 but you need to watch the bits before that to understand the frames I shoot. Don't be put off by the video starting in Lightroom - I only start there because we're looking at the finished image.

[@FrankEtchells]

👌👍 Top marks.. 100% Prof 😊 When I get back to doing some photography and/or editing images I'm going to have to go back to view all your previous YT vids on RT Andy and go through them all from the 'initial set up/preferences' Andy. Looking forward to the next one in the series - certainly has more strings to it than LR does. I've become 'blase' with the way I use LR to get (acceptable?) images... So much more to RT to become comfortable with as a workflow for me. Which leads me to this... I, 'personally', found it slightly difficult (?) for following with having to flick from right to left (and vice versa) with the left and right hand panels. I just checked in my copy to see if I it's possible to put these panels side by side on the right (or left!) so the image is on the left (or right) - couldn't find such. This is most likely an "age" thing for me with being 'elderly' 😎. Do you know if such a set up/layout is possible? If not... do you think it *may* be of help to some when editing? I initially think it would benefit me anyway. And... if a benefit and not presently possible... is it something you could (would) suggest to the programmers for any future update of the program? Cheers Andy 👍

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Frank 🍻🍻 Try playing with the layout settings in the Preferences panel Frank.

[@lukaszk2117]

Great!

[@Mike-br4tw]

Andy, Great explanation of the HSV Equalizer. When you get to L*A*B* Adjustments could you take a minute to explain where the HSV Equalizer is different and where one might be used over the other? Mike

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Mike, will do 🍻🍻

[@DiemenDesign]

Great video, thanks for sharing, some very handy information.

[@AndyAstbury]

Glad you found it useful 👍

[@fernandolorenz]

I would like to find a tutorial video about how to process Black & White images in Raw Therapee according to Ansel Adam's zone system. Any hints, Andy?

[@michup86]

Hey Andy. I own your sharpening tutorials. You use there Lightroom to PS workflow. Do you still recommend such workflow for someone who don't own Lightroom? Is it better to buy Lightroom or use RT to PS these day's? If so, would you make an update on how to best achieve such workflow? PS: I see you've actually put a video like that few weeks ago which I've missed. However, I haven't watched it yet. Still, appreciate the answer which way is overall better to go?

[@AndyAstbury]

Ahh, the million dollar question - Lr or RT? I discovered RT just before I started making that sharpening course, and I do cover a little in there. But RT has moved on a bit since then. For my own workflow I use RT primarily as an alternative to the DEV module in Lightroom, but not as an Lr replacement - because the DAM and PRINT facilities in Lr are spectacular. But, I still use the Lr dev module for a good 65%+ of my stock work - usually the high speed wildlife action shots I do. It's faster and simpler than RT, and easier for the majority of folk to understand too. For that same type of stock work I may take 1 shot in 7 into Ps for some extra work - dodge/burn, retouch etc, and the workflow is seamless 300ppi ProPhotoRGB. For stock work of this type speed/time is everything as it sells cheap. However, for slower and more deliberate work - such as landscape/product imagery I tend to do more work in Ps - every shot in fact. Ps depends on superior raw development and this is where I personally rely more on RT now than Ps - and also when someone asks for large wildlife shots/prints that were originally done for simple stock in Lr. But RT is not 100% seamless with Ps if you want to maintain the industry standard 300ppi workflow - but I've covered how to address that problem in previous YT videos. When it comes to advanced sharpening - which is always a local adjustment - you need layer masks etc, and that is the sole purview of Ps. With the inclusion of Ingos' excellent RL capture sharpening on the Y channel immediately after the initial demosaic in the RT5.8 tool chain RT now minimises the halo problems we suffer using Lightroom. But all the Ps sharpening techniques in the video course can still be bought to bare on the image. I may well do an RT and Ps training title, but any course title is a huge undertaking in time so I have to be sure it will sell to make it economically viable. But if there is anything specific you need to see then I could cover it here on YT.

[@markrigg6623]

Same question I've been meaning to ask.

[@michup86]

@@AndyAstbury thanks for replying. I guess I need to explain where I come from with this questions for better context. Im not professional photographer but a hobbyist that wishes to print it's own work in A2-A5 sort of formats and put in frames at house. Changing them once per year or so. So I don't need industry flow to keep things done in timely manner. Also I try to avoid expanses that are too extreme as I'm not making any return's from such investments. I use m43 Lumix GX80/85 with 42.5 f/1.7 and Leica 15 f/1.7 prime lenses. I invested in screen with 100% AdobeRGB gamut and xrite calibrator and color checker. I've contacted printing local company and obtained their color profile. I did color profile for my camera too. What I'm lacking is knowledge how to process images for sharpening and noise cancellation. So I've invested in your courses. Without any prior knowledge how to use tools such as PS or LT. I did watch your stuff and tried to implement them in RT and GIMP workflow but failed.I was surprised that Adobe cancelled sales of CS6 which IMO killed hobbyist use of their products as monthly expanses are not justifiable for non business use. I learned that people still sell PS6 and Lightroom by giving away their license and there is a way provided by Adobe to reassign the license ownership. From your videos I understand that PS is unavoidable as it's the boss of raster graphics processor. Lightroom however is not cheap too and it looks like RT is simply better. Considering I'm about to process shots for print in 300ppi it looks I will be processing in PS my shots. In one hand you say that LT is good for print management but in other you say that RT is better for raw preprocessing which you continue to work on in PS. Also, your guide gives clear workflow on how to prepare in LT every picture before you export it to PS which is very valuable for me as someone without any prior knowledge of this tools. As it's easy to follow. At least to start with before I get around things. Keep in mind that while o watched the whole course I didn't have tools to practice myself so knowledge didn't sunk in as it should. All in all. I understand I've to buy PS and I'm about to get license for PS6 to reasons I explained above. I wonder should I stick with RT or do I've to buy LT and don't have regret later of doing so. With mind of my actual use. Which is again hobbyist processing for a2-a4 prints.

[@yellowjacket7258]

Question about how to use curves: At 4:45 you show a curve and a histogram, and you move the curve upward to the right of the histogram. If the histogram shows where the pixels, i.e., information, are, then why not move the curve upward right where the histogram is. TIA

[@AndyAstbury]

Ah, you are not seeing the fine run-out of the brighter tones on the right of the histogram Saul - I'm adjusting from directly above the very end of the histo - my bad, I should have pulled the panel dock out more to the left to make it bigger and more obvious.

[@barkingbandicoot]

Thank you Sir! Very clear and well presented explanations! Do you have a LBRY/Odyssey channel? Many people who use Open Source software (as is Raw Therapee) favour LBRY for video content. It is possible to have KZbin uploads automatically synced to LBRY also!

[@jonpaulsen3861]

Thank you, sir! You just might get decent PP pounded into my thick skull! ‘Scribed and liked!!!

[@AndyAstbury]

🍻🍻😀👍

[@Bizon-q2u]

I'm wondering whether to set exposures with the curve zeroed out, or should it be loaded from a profile such as the standard one?

[@pearcemachineshop5200]

Hi Andy I wonder if you can help, I’ve downloaded RT but I’ve ran into an problem it won’t recognise CR3 files from my 90D don’t know what to do, any advise would be great fully received. Regards Alan.

[@AndyAstbury]

Hi Pearce - that's because there are .CR3 files, and then there are .CR3 files!!!! The newer Canon CR3 files have different container codes and so until Canon see fit to let the RT dev team have the code everyone is stuck. It's the same situation with 1DXMk3 files - unreadable. There is a work-around in the short term - duplicate your CR3s to another folder and convert the dupes to DNG - it's messy but at least you can work on your files in RT. The RT dev team have, I think, put a request out for file donations so they can attempt to reverse - engineer the necessary de-coding. RT uses dcraw which is where the problem lies. If you are on windows then you could try downloading the ART fork of RT which I'm certain uses Libraw - jump on the RT forum and search .CR3 as there is quite a lot of talk about the files.

[@pearcemachineshop5200]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Andy, looks like I'll have to keep using DPP then, 😁

[@pearcemachineshop5200]

Andy if I save the file as a tiff in DPP then put it into RT do you think I would lose a lot of information from the file. Alan.

[@AndyAstbury]

That would be a mistake in my opinion Pearce - going the DNG route or using ART Fork would be better in my opinion.

[@AndyAstbury]

RT is very good with TIFF images, but a TIFF is a rasterised image and the adjustments work in a different way than on a raw file.

[@hmoen]

How do you add a frame/border around the picture? I think in PS they call it canvas

[@samcraftyhands3305]

Hi there i hope i get an answer to my q i want to blur faces with raw can i do it and how please i am still new to raw

[@AndyAstbury]

I can't see a simple way to do that in RT, but Photoshop or GIMP would make blurring small areas very easy.

[@silviogrosso7780]

Hello Andy, Thanks a lot for this tutorial. Great tips, as usual :-) By any chance, have you also tried ART (1.3 - stable version)? It is an open source fork of RawTherapee, by Alberto Griggio, a former developer of RawTherapee, BTW: bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/downloads/ With ART you get some additional options: e.g. more advanced masks, clone tools etc: bitbucket.org/agriggio/art/wiki/Home

[@AndyAstbury]

Cheers Silvio - no, not tried it because I can't get it to install on my Mac.

[@nessa749]

So the question is which curve is better for beginners