I created this thread with a much more pedestrian goal in mind, basically to ask how others use the tonemapping features. Think of the following as a series of T/F statements, For example:
In general...
- I never use contrast < 1.0
- I never use highlight compression <1.0
- I never use highlight compression <3.0
- I never use contrast > 1.0 in combination with a LUT
- I never use filmic shadows in combination with a LUT
- I never use LUTS
- I never use LUTS at an opacity of 1.0
- I never use the built-in vignetting
- I never use color tint
- I never use filmic highlights
- I always use filmic highlights = 1.0
- I always use filmic highlights = 1.0 when using a LUT
- I always use Dubcat ACES emulation
- I always increase / decrease saturation a little bit
- I never adjust saturation
- I never use green-magenta tint
- I always use sharpening / blurring in the VFB - here are the settings
- I always keep exposure = 0 and modify light sources instead of EV spinner
- I never use bloom / glare
This is the most interesting thing for me. As this settings are completely different to what I use normally and I actually have NO IDEA on what are the best ones to use.
I edited my scene to use only Corona materials and no copyrighted assets. It means it looks boring but it serves the purpose.
I will post the scene here for anyone to download and try their preferred settings and normal workflow over it. Please post an image resulting from your workflow as well as your preferred settings. I'll start! This might be very interesting!!
Ok, so this is corona Defaults (only changed EV otherwise its burned up)
I never use that as a starting point though. My default settings are this:
I rarely leave it at that though. So My workflow always involves some amount of tweaking. For this particular image, a quick tweaking ends up like this:
Not saying that is what I would consider a finished image. But as a quick summary of my normal workflow, and not changing anything about the scene, I would say that's close.
So, If you want to try:
Download the scene from here (created in a student version so none of it can be used for commercial purposes, only learning):
https://share.getcloudapp.com/yAu20wZXDo not change anything about the scene! Leave light and materials the same, only tweak tonemapping.
Use your usual settings and post the results. It doesn't have to be all inside corona, if you usually take the image outside of corona to finish retouching, go ahead! do that and let's see what a difference workflow makes.