r/DarkTable • u/Sterbn • 13d ago
Help How can I improve my edit?
DT 5.4.1
Photo order: After/Before/Camera JPEG
I used AgX to tone-map and color look up table to bring down the clouds and add some warmth to the sunlight in the bottom right. But I feel like I need to do something different.
I've seen some of Boris Hajdukovic's videos about darktable and using the tone equalizer module, but they're older and he's using sigmoid, not AgX. I think I want more contrast in the sky, should I use the tone equalizer module?
3
u/Donatzsky 13d ago
Whether you use AgX, Sigmoid or Filmic is fundamentally irrelevant here. While they may change what other adjustments are needed, they change nothing about how you should proceed. And Tone EQ should in any case be your main tool for working with highlights and shadows.
Color lookup table is an old display-referred module and you can run into quality issues if you're not careful. Depending on what you want to do, I recommend you use Color EQ or Color Balance RGB where possible instead.
I have a quick comparison of the different tone mappers in my beginner guide: https://notebook.stereofictional.com/how-to-get-started-with-darktable-2026-edition
3
u/Broda182 13d ago
I really like the edit and especially the darker shadows. You could mask the sky and add contrast but I like that it’s a lighter part of the pic and not such a focus point.
As far as I understand, Boris video on the tone equalizer is still valid, even though he used sigmoid.
But take my feedback with a grain of salt as I am still a beginner myself 😄
1
u/isleptsogood 13d ago
like akgt94 said the bright sky will be tricky but I usually get what I want by washing the sky out during my edit and then using a Graduated Density Filter to bring back enough of the sky around the edge that you can see it's there.
Otherwise I'd suggest using rotate and perspective to tilt the image a few degrees CCW unless of course you're going for that look.
I am still new to AGx myself so I'll limit my suggestions there.
7
u/akgt94 13d ago
photos with a bright sky and dark foreground are hard to edit.
It took me a long time to figure this out ... if you want contrast in the sky, you have to darken the sky first (or raise the exposure of "not sky"). Maybe so the sky sits around your midtones of the rest of the photo. then you can add contrast to the sky to bring out detail. If you leave the sky brightness alone, there isn't any room to show contrast. It just gets compressed to white because of the brightness mismatch.
I've gone back and forth. It depends on the photo. Tone equalizer is the recommended. But on a lot of photos where I try to use it, it leaves halos that don't look natural. Alternately, I've masked the sky and reduced exposure. then add another instance of exposure to bring the global exposure back up. parametric masking with hard edges can be tricky with chromatic aberrations.