Match camera brightness in the editor setting
If I understand it correctly, this setting only affects stacking from RAW images, right?
Most of the time I’m using TIFs generated by DXO Pure RAW as input (because I think, it makes sense to de-noise prior to stacking just not to amplify the noise). In this case the setting doesn’t have any effect, has it?
Would it make sense to make such settings stack-specific rather than having it on global level? Like if I had a folder with a lot of sub-stacks which are exposed differently, the global setting might not deliver the correct result for each sub-stack.
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Comments2
Ryan Cush
Jul 25
You've got it exactly right on both counts. The setting works by reading the small JPEG preview that cameras embed in every RAW file, then nudging the stacked (or opened) image to match that reference brightness. Only RAW files carry that embedded preview, so:
RAW in: the setting is active.
TIFF in (e.g. your DxO PureRAW output): there's no embedded camera reference to match, so the setting does nothing at all, your TIFFs stack at their own brightness, untouched.
On your third question, the good news is that for this particular setting the problem you're picturing doesn't really arise. When it's active, it doesn't apply one global brightness to everything, it measures each stack's own middle frame and matches that stack individually. So a folder of RAW sub-stacks shot at different exposures would each be anchored to their own exposure, not dragged to a single global value. The preference is really just the on/off switch; the actual target is computed per-stack. But again, with TIFFs, it has no impact at all.
Great questions.
Klaus Cinibulk
Jul 26
Understood. Thanks for clarifying that, Ryan. It‘s so useful to get some in-depth information about the internals.
👍