FilmPack Fine contrast question

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

@John-M

The “Advanced” contrast settings are only available (as you know) if one has a FP-Elite license - So, without this license, the “Fine Contrast” slider provides a gross/broad equivalence. As a result, tho, for users with a FP-Elite license there’s little point using “Fine Contrast” slider, as you suggest.

John,

If I’m reading this correctly, this seems to say that the Fine Contrast slider is available in PhotoLab Elite without a FilmPack 5 Elite license. Is that what is being suggested?

From the user guide, “If you have installed DxO FilmPack 5 (ELITE Edition), four other sliders will also be present: Fine contrast and three advanced settings tied to it: Highlights, Midtones and Shadows.”

Mark

[rrblint (Mark)]

Thanks John for the response, but Mark is right. FC is also part of FP5.

[mwsilvers (Mark - New Jersey, USA)]

By the way Mark, until reading this thread I was unaware of the relationship between the Fine Contrast slider and the three Advanced Contrast sliders. Thanks go to Peter and your follow up test. This was very useful information.

Mark.

[John-M (Melbourne, Australia - Win10)]

@rrblint

Thanks John for the response, but Mark is right. FC is also part of FP5.

Ahh - My incorrect assumption !

@mwsilvers

Thanks go to Peter and your follow up test. This was very useful information.

Indeed, yes … a worthwhile “learning”.

John M

[rrblint (Mark)]

I know I sure learned a lot! Thanks to Peter and Greg for the correct information, I just tested it. Thanks to Jul for asking the question.

[OXiDant (Peter)]

It’s like all other nuance edite sliders.
you need to know and understand there purpose to use them at the right time.
DxO stil needs some extra sliders in this part of toning.
there are workarounds but for more open communication and easy acces they are needed.
(i need to test more and make some good explainations first before i can show them here as new asked feature and the release of v4 is just so why leap over that?)
ok now the contrast /tone controls.
contrast is always about adding (plus) or losing detail/saturation. at any level.

• microcontrast is about edgedetection and dragging lineparts to black getting the effect of more hars lines and more saturated colors (deeper colorlook by adding black dots)
  its a form of USM unsharpmasking but more detailed/finer dots.
  Fine contrast does the same but with grey dots so lines, in your skin for example, don’t be sharpend (blacklined like woman’s eyeliner) as much and you can “saturate”/detail colors more subtle. so softtone , pasteltints are benefit from Finecontrast.
  in tone you have blacks to drag the tonecurve down to “o” but it’s not the same as “blacklevel”
  Because “blacklevel” is about ADDING blackdots without having the sharpening effect that Microcontrast has.
  Clearviewplus has some blacklevel because it’s trying to avoid sharpening on part’s that can’t have it. (that’s the “plus” i think) the algorithm is searching for edges to sharpen and add’s blacklevel dots “random” to dehaze the picture. Clearview/clarity is about saturating colors and enhancing detail wile “blacklevel dots” only “saturate/enhancing” color.

so reminder that selective tone is about lumination, you bent the tonecurve but don’t create detail by changing.levels. you just get them “visible”.
the (advanged") contrast is about adding “dots” or lowering “dots” more to blackisch level in order to create something, namely enhancing edges/lines/smal details. in the tone curve you not only bent the toencurve you add “blackdots” to the imagedata.
creating “noise” black noise.
Using the tone curve and making a S-form you bent as in the seletive tone tool the image toning so saturating colors BUT you DON’T add sharpening kind of dots.
we have this shown in the clearview / tonecurve combination tutorial.
So use all together and you will be more happy with the results

Peter

[rrblint (Mark)]

Thank you Peter for the education on digital contrast. I always thought that raising contrast was just raising lighter values and lowering darker values and opposite for lowering contrast, same as increasing or decreasing paper grades in darkroom printing. All my years of analog photography did not properly prepare me for the digital revolution and how contrast on digital files works. I learn something new every day and that makes life a lot more fun!

[OXiDant (Peter)]

i made a rather quick and dirty video to show you the difference effects:
click here

The tone curve create’s “contrast” by saturation of the image toning but not real sharpening as clearview does.
i tried to show this here video
different application.
there clarity is as DxO’s Clearviewplus.
blacklevel is as a blunt Dehaze slider.
what it shows is the difference between microcontrast and contrast.
tonecurve has a great viewtool of what contrast does in the tonecurve and what “clearview/clarity” does. much less to the curve but more to “sharpening”

hope this helps.

Peter

[rrblint (Mark)]

Thanks Peter for taking the time to produce these videos. Very helpful!

[Wolfgang ([ Win10, PL+VP+FP, Nik6 (+3) ])]

Always have been wondering what ‘Fine Contrast’ and the Advanced Settings are really doing, as I didn’t know that from (old) PS / ACR / LR. – And yes, I read the manual and ?-help.

Finally I understood, that Highlights / Midtones / Shadows are just a subset ‘controlled’ by the master AND don’t change the saturation – different to Contrast or Tone Curve (did some experimentation).

Thank you for all questions & explanations.
Wolfgang