Before an upgrade of our webhosting company took down our blogs a week ago, I was trying a new darktable image converting algorithm (or tone mapper) called “AgX” – see and read more about it here, here, or here.
Technically, it’s probably the most advanced one I’ve seen so far. From a user’s standpoint, you’ll really have to learn the thing – without changing any settings, a picture I took with my Olympus camera and Mitchie’s Panasonic lens looks like this:
A wide tonal range for sure, with no blown-out highlights, and it’s as neutral as I could think of – but is it pretty? Here’s the out-of-cam jpg pic for comparison:
Nicer greens and greys, a lot more contrast, and more life-like also if I remember that correctly – although some of Bella’s white fur is about to “clip” (be overexposed). It would take some work to make the AgX conversion look like Olympus’ special sauce in their in-camera “developer”, in case you’d want that.
But interesting it is without any question, so let me read about the thing a bit more, and also experiment with it – I think it has deserved that. Thanks to all developers of free and open source stuff like this, it’s really appreciated!
To you, like always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.