Manual HDR Tone Mapping in PhotoLine

[shijan]

As you may know, there is a view transform for Blender - Filmic Blender (Film Emulsion-Like Camera Rendering Transforms for Blender). It gently compress dynamic range and creates nice looking highlights rolloff in final rendered non-EXR images. Here's a test file and reference shared on other forum to play with. The EXR file is a linear render output from Blender. The PNG file is a 16 bit output from Blender with the Filmic look applied (default settings: Look=none, Gamma=1;Exposure=0): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8r4z7hjh06hj ... 5j1za?dl=0

When we open both images in PhotoLine, they look like this:


Automatic HDR Tone Mapping in PhotoLine usually works well, but in this situation when tiny highlight reflection is EXTREMELY bright, it look not too pretty:


If we uncheck "Protect Brightness", we could see very dark image because all available tonal data was shrinked inside visible range:


Now let's keep that dark looking image, add "Exposure" Adjustment layer and increase "Luminance" (I still believe that itis more correct to name this slider "Lightness" because it represents L* (Lab-like) tonal response curve). Perfect:


Also instead of "HDR Tone Mapping" with "Automatic" checkbox, you can use "Output Levels" slider in "Levels" Adjustment (It is really funny to see how near 93% of data in this test sample file is occupied by tiny reflection spot):


Also same trick could be done with single "Exposure" Adjustment Layer. Just use "Exposure" and "Lightness" sliders:

[shijan]

You can also use Gamma slider to shape the contrast without clipped shadows/highlights.
Decrease Gamma + increase Luminance = more contrast:


And it is also possible to develop RAW photos in same way. Just open RAW photo, delete all default adjustmnents, Set ICC profile with Linear gamma matched to selected in RAW Preferences (i use ProPhotoRGB), add Correct Highlights, add Channel Mixer with preset saved profile preset from earlier opened photos, add Exposure Adjustment. Here is final look example and also preview of Gamma+Luminance curve (rendered using HaldCLUT in other app):

[Herbert123]

What does the render look in Blender with Filmic at base contrast?

PS are you aware that AgX does a better job than Filmic?

PPS FIlmic is not a plugin for Blender. It's a view transform.

[shijan]

Thanks for notes, i changed text in first post. I didn't know about AgX or Filmic before and i don't work in Blender as well. I just tested tone mapping alternatives in PhotoLine and by accident find old thread at LGG DaVinci Resolve forums with Blender Filmic examples. So i decide to use those examples as side by side compare.

P.S. I read some articles about AgX, and seems in addition to brightness it compress saturation at higher values (probably it may expand to wider color space and then compress it back to sRGB using some saturation compression method.)

[shijan]

Here is another test based on high saturated EXR example file shared under this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ioFK15460

Non Tone mapped image opened in PhotoLine and assigned ACEScg ICC profile with linear gamma, as required by description for this test file:

Optimize HDR (don't works well here due too extreme dynamic range):


Exposure + Luminance. Looks OK, but some extreme saturated colors looks slightly clipped visually (but not numerically):


Exposure + Luminance + Saturation with Color Filter. Looks near same as AgX and you have full control of desaturation amount and amount of affected areas: