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I'm playing with Darktable, coming from Photoshop, and though I really admire most of its features, there is one thing I cannot seem to wrap my head around.

In Photoshop, I can easily remove color cast using the 'Auto Color' command, which basically applies Levels to stretch each of the color channels. Alternatively, I can manually play with Levels per channel. In Darktable, I have yet to find an equivalent way to remove a color cast. What is an effective Darktable approach here?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Out of interest, why did you choose PS and Darktable over Lightroom? \$\endgroup\$
    – timvrhn
    May 9, 2019 at 11:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Well, aside from the white balance module, there's also color correction, color balance, color contrast, color zones, channel mixer. Any of them can work for removing color casts - some better for full-image casts vs just e.g. in the shadows or something. The best way to figure out what works best for you is to play with them. \$\endgroup\$
    – twalberg
    May 9, 2019 at 11:50
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Tim Stack: I own a PS license, am less and less happy with Adobe so will definitely not invest in Lightroom. \$\endgroup\$
    – eezacque
    May 9, 2019 at 12:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ Aah. Well, what can I say? Arr, drink up me harties! \$\endgroup\$
    – timvrhn
    May 9, 2019 at 12:36

2 Answers 2

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Within the white balance module you can select "spot" from the preset drop-down list to remove color cast based on a selected area. By default, the entire image except for a margin around the edges is selected; better results are usually obtained by selecting a part of the image that should be neutral gray or white (be careful about including any areas with clipped highlights, though, as this can throw off the calculation).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What is a clipped highlight? Google results are too broad on that topic. \$\endgroup\$
    – Tomáš Zato
    Aug 12, 2020 at 8:43
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For manual channel-by-channel adjustment, you could try the color balance module. I don't think it's enabled by default, so you may need to activate it using the "more modules" button.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ This comes closest to what I was looking for... \$\endgroup\$
    – eezacque
    May 9, 2019 at 12:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ Note that the latest versions of this module include a "neutralize colors" button near the bottom, but despite being a "dropper" button, it seems to not actually let you select a specific region. \$\endgroup\$
    – junkyardsparkle
    May 10, 2019 at 4:02

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