*"The developers should keep the zone system in my opinion."* I would tend to agree with Tanya about keeping the zone system. While I much prefer the tone equalizer module over the zone system I feel having the choice to use or not use the zone system is best. What I really like about DT is the ability to have so many choices of modules to achieve your desired outcome. I can understand that modules may have to be deprecated if they can not be maintained or cause DT to not work correctly, but if this is not the case then I would agree that the zone system should be reinstated.
I was also surprised to see some noise reduction modules have disappeared in the latest version of DT. I did like the options of multiple modules for tackling different noise issues. But in saying that I am impressed with the improvements to the denoise (profiled) module, especially the chrominance only preset in the hamburger. I really appreciate the effort of all the developers for producing my favourite editing program, but please only deprecate modules if you really have to. *Thanks Terry* On Wed, 6 Jan 2021 at 09:28, Tanya Riseman <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you all for the tips on using tone equalizer. I am still digesting > them, but have made a lot of progress. > > I am using DT 3.2 so that I can compare zone system and tone equalizer. I > understand that tone equalizer in v. 3.4 is a lot better, but I am putting > off upgrading to it due to the lack of zone system. > > I took a sample picture to edit, with a good range of black to white. I > want to make it look like the classic B&W street photography with "inky > blacks". In zone system I pushed the dark shadows down toward the black to > get this effect. I also pushed the highlights toward the whites, but not as > much. There are 8 points on the zone strip that one can vary. I am going > for the look of "inky blacks" over preserving all the detail. > > In tone equalizer using the default mask type of guided filter and > spreading the mask histogram as much as I could, I got about 3.5 points on > the curve that could modify the picture. I could not get anything near to > the result from zone system. Too grey. > > I tried choosing 'no' in preserve details (in the masking tab), as Juan > suggested. Now the mask spans all 8 EV and I was able to get very close to > my picture from zone system. > > So my conclusions are > > 1. It is not certain that tone equalizer is mature since the last big > update is only from late December. > > 2. If tone equalizer is not yet mature, it is premature to deprecate the > zone system module. > > 3. The tone equalizer "preserve details" option of "no" that basically > replicates the zone system/ tone curve is very buried. Maybe it should be > on the simple tab. To be honest I find the tone curve hard to use and was > initially smitten with the simple tab on the tone equalizer. > > 4. Learning the tone equalizer is much harder than the zone system (thank > you for the hand holding). This is a barrier for beginners; let them get > their sea legs using the zone system as they learn techniques that go > beyond basic sliders. > > 5. Obviously in using the tone equalizer, there are other images where the > intention is more of preserving detail while not adjusting tone values more > than the detail mask allows. I can think of documentary cases like bird > photos and scientific images. > > 6. The developers should keep the zone system in my opinion. > > Tanya Riseman > > > ____________________________________________________________________________ > darktable user mailing list to unsubscribe send a mail to > [email protected] > -- ____________________________________________________________________________ darktable user mailing list to unsubscribe send a mail to [email protected]
