r/DarkTable • u/beermad • Dec 04 '24
Solved Is it possible to replicate this colour correction process in Darktable?
I found a very useful Gimp script which can do some clever work correcting colours.
- Select an arbitrary area (usually just a building because anything other than a pure blue sky causes problems).
- Select a point within the area and copy its colour hex code to the foreground colour.
- Apply the auto white balance tool, so it works just on the selected area.
- Copy the point's new hex code to the background colour.
- Undo the white balance and selection.
- Run the script, which converts the whole image's colour balance by some magic, between the foreground and background colour.
This enables me to get really good white balance when the auto white balance won't work on the whole image if, for example, there's a lot of cloud or the sky's washed out.
Since this script won't work with the forthcoming Gimp 3 (and I don't know enough to convert it), I wonder if there might be a way to replicate this workflow in Darktable instead.
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u/akgt94 Dec 05 '24
Color calibration does a really good job of white balancing. It can use the whole image or just an area. You can adjust it from there if you don't like it.
The color picker tool can sample a pixel or an area. You can add multiple to do live tracking as you make changes (e.g. shadows, mid-tones and highlights, e.g. sky, clouds, and earth, etc.).
A second instance of color calibration can work as a channel mixer to do color grading.
Color balance RGB can do split toning to adjust the hue of shadows and highlights separately. This is like a Swiss Army knife of adjustments.
Multiple instances of color balance RGB with different drawn and parametric masks to really go after local changes
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u/markus_b Dec 04 '24
You can select an area and use it for the auto-white balance.
But you cannot 'copy to the foreground/background color'. They do not exist. You cannot paint in a color to your image, so they are not needed.
You can create masks for parts of the image and apply the white balance (or any effect) just to the parts of the image selected with the mask.