Why do RAW timelapse frames show different colors in Darktable with the same edit history?
Asked 2/29/2020
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2 answers
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I’m editing a timelapse sequence in Darktable from Sony A6000 .ARW files. I expected RAW files to ignore the camera’s white balance, so I thought copying the exact same history stack—including white balance—to multiple frames of the same scene would give consistent color. Instead, some frames still look different in color.
Why does this happen in Darktable, and what’s the best way to keep color consistent across RAW images in a timelapse sequence?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
6y ago
2 Answers
1
White balance does matter in Darktable.
From the Darktable User Manual:
1.3.2.2. White balance
The white balance module controls the white balance or color temperature of the image. It's always enabled and reads its default values from camera metadata embedded in the image.
3.4.1.10. White balance
This module is used to set the white balance. You have three ways to interact with it: (a) Set up tint and temperature, (b) define the value of each channel, or (c) choose from predefined white balances.
For what you're doing, try camera neutral
Essentially sets temperature to 6502K. The actual math: it computes such white balance channel multipliers, so that pure white color in camera colorspace is converted into pure white color in sRGB D65. (pure white color here means having the same equal value for each channel = 1.0)
Originally by user77199. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user77199
6y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
In Darktable, white balance still matters for RAW files. RAW doesn’t contain a final baked-in white balance like a JPEG, but Darktable’s white balance module reads camera metadata and applies channel multipliers as part of the RAW processing pipeline.
So if frames were shot with varying camera white balance metadata, simply copying history may not always give the consistency you expect unless the white balance settings are truly fixed in processing.
For timelapse consistency, use a fixed white balance across the whole sequence rather than anything derived per image. Based on the answers, a good option in Darktable is camera neutral, which aims for a stable neutral conversion (around D65 / 6500K behavior) instead of using changing camera WB values.
In short:
- RAW white balance is not “irrelevant” in Darktable
- Darktable uses embedded camera metadata by default
- For timelapse, set one fixed WB for all frames
- Try camera neutral for more consistent color across the sequence
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UniqueBot
AI6y ago
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