v1.11.0 — Camera-portable vocabulary + visual-proof trust closure

[1.11.0] — 2026-05-23

Vocabulary maturation, honest visual proofs, camera-aware apply.

v1.11.0's headline is RFC-039: raw-derived parameters in L2
composition. The vocabulary now ports across photographers AND across
camera bodies — an L2 look that says "warm by +1500K" produces three
different op_params on Sony, Canon, and Nikon raws, because the
substitution reads each body's EXIF WB at apply time. Same pattern
extends to denoise (per-ISO threshold scaling), filmic (per-histogram
tone points), and lens correction (per-body lensfun identifier).
Vocabulary entries are reauthored to compose parametric primitives
instead of inlining camera-specific bytes.

The visual-proofs gallery's trust gap (rendered the wrong fixture for
21 entries pre-v1.11.0) was closed in three steps: a chart-verifiable
discriminator (#129), real-raw landscape + portrait fixtures via Git
LFS (#130), and content-aware fixture routing for sky / skin / food /
foliage / landscape / water entries (#138). A formal audit script
(#141) wired to CI now catches direction-of-effect regressions in the
gallery before they reach a release.

Stats

• 114 vocabulary entries (3 starter + 111 expressive-baseline)
• 2200+ tests; lab-grade direction-of-change for 88 entries
• Cross-camera fixtures: Sony DSC-RX10M4 + Sony ZV-E10 + Canon EOS R6
  • Nikon D70 (4 manufacturers, 3 raw formats: ARW / CR3 / NEF)
• Visual-proof audit: 114 ok / 0 warn / 0 fail

RFC-039 / ADR-091/092/093 — Raw-derived parameters in L2 composition

The architectural shift: a vocabulary entry's claim is portability
across photographers AND across raws. Before v1.11.0, WB-touching
entries carried hardcoded raw-domain coefficients from their authoring
camera — they LOOKED portable but produced foreign-WB casts on any
other body. RFC-039 makes the vocabulary architecturally honest by
computing the WB coefficients per-raw at apply time.

• ADR-091 — Engine raw-metadata-aware apply API. apply_entry()
  gains a raw_path parameter; parametric decoders that need raw
  metadata declare it; a lazy rawpy reader caches the EXIF WB +
  daylight matrix per workspace. Fallback semantics for non-raw
  fixtures: identity-skip (the temperature op drops from the
  rendered output entirely, so darktable applies its own camera
  default).
• ADR-092 — Manifest composes field for L2 composition by
  reference. L2 looks gain an optional composes: [{primitive, params}]
  field; the synthesizer resolves references at apply time, splicing
  the parametric primitive's output into the L2 dtstyle's history at
  the correct iop_order. Depth-1 only (L2 composes L3); cross-pack
  resolution works.
• ADR-093 — Camera-aware parametric temperature semantics.
  Identity preserves the camera's EXIF WB (not 1.0/1.0/1.0); deltas
  apply in coefficient space (red ∝ 1+0.0001·kelvin_delta, blue
  inverse). Empirically verified against three manufacturers
  (#142).

Same RFC-039 engine machinery extends to:

• denoise (#134) — log2 ISO scaling above reference (ISO 200 →
  1×, ISO 400 → 2×, ISO 800 → 4×). New ADR-094.
• filmic (#135) — black/white points auto-tuned per raw
  histogram percentiles. New ADR-095.
• lens correction (#136) — EXIF camera + lens identifiers
  populate the lensfun fields. New ADR-096.

Visual-proof gallery — three trust-gap closures

• #129 — Chart-verifiable discriminator. Every entry routes to
  one of four modes (chart / real_raw / not_yet_portable /
  manual) by the modules it touches. 38 entries route to real-raw
  fixtures; the rest stay on the synthetic colorchecker / grayscale
  ramp where those are honest fixtures.
• #130 — Real-raw fixtures via Git LFS. Sony DSC-RX10M4
  landscape ARW + Sony ZV-E10 portrait ARW, both CC BY-SA 4.0 from
  discuss.pixls.us. Per-entry routing landscape / portrait based on
  touches + content.
• #138 — Content-aware fixture routing. requires_content
  manifest tag (sky / water / foliage / landscape / food / skin)
  picks the matching fixture for entries whose effect needs scene
  content the chart doesn't have.
• #139 — Clipped-gradient routing for blacks_lifted /
  blacks_crushed. The sigmoid target_black effect is below noise
  on the colorchecker but visible on the synthetic clipped fixture.

#141 — Formalized visual-proof audit

scripts/audit_visual_proofs.py (wired to CI on every push) compares
each rendered after-image to its baseline via pixel-stat signatures
(mean R/G/B, luma, std-luma, mean chroma, clip counts) and emits a
per-entry verdict by subtype-specific direction-of-effect heuristics.
Current state: 114 ok / 0 warn / 0 fail across the 114-entry
vocabulary. 17 smoke tests verify the heuristics themselves can't
silently break. The audit knows about parametric identity-default
entries, requires_content-tagged content-aware masks, and chroma-
shift entries (different metric from R/B mean).

#142 — Cross-camera RFC-039 verification

Two new CC0 fixtures via Git LFS (Canon EOS R6 CR3, Nikon D70 NEF;
~10 MB total, from raw.pixls.us). 7-test integration suite at
tests/integration/core/test_cross_camera_wb.py asserts:

• Per-body daylight WB probe returns plausible values (Sony 2.39/1.0/
  1.71, Canon 1.81/1.0/1.63, Nikon 2.17/1.0/1.52)
• +1500K shift anchors on each camera's WB (R ≈ camera_R × 1.15;
  B ≈ camera_B × 0.85)
• Same logical operation produces 3 distinct op_params across 3
  bodies — the load-bearing portability assertion

#143 — Strengthened parametric assertions

Three _check_render_completes entries upgraded to direction-of-
change:

• grain_strength — new _check_pixel_std_increase LabCheck;
  PatchSample.std_luma_8bit field reads pixel-level luma std.
  grain_strength=50 lifts std by +1.57; grain_strength=8 by +0.12.
• highlights_clip_threshold — parametrized
  test_clipped_fixture_validation.py to cover clip_0.85 (≥5%
  clipped reduction) AND clip_0.95 (≥1%).
• toneequalizer — stays at render-completes after empirical
  finding that band centers don't align with linear grayscale ramp
  indices; direction-of-bytes is exhaustively covered by
  test_toneequal.py. Documented in the entry's inline comment.

Side-cleanup: wb_warm_subtle moved to SKIP_REASONS — the
RFC-039 composed entry can't substitute on a non-raw chart;
direction asserted by #142's cross-body suite and the byte-level
kelvin-delta test.

#144 — Inline CI-assertion annotations in the gallery

Every gallery entry now surfaces what CI mechanically verifies for
it alongside the photographic-intent description. Four cases:

• EXPECTED_EFFECTS direct coverage → check_name(threshold) +
  fixture name
• PARAMETERIZED_EFFECTS → one bullet per (label, params)
• SKIP_REASONS → the documented skip reason inline
• L2 composite (auto-skipped by structural rule) → "verified by
  visual review" inline

53 entries get direct assertions; 14 get skip reasons; 47 get the
L2-composite line. Reader never wonders.

#145 — Cross-pack composition stress test

Three synthetic test packs at tests/fixtures/vocabulary/ exercise
N=3-pack scenarios that the v1.10.0 [starter, expressive-baseline]
default didn't cover:

• Cross-pack composes reference (a 3rd pack composes starter's
  primitive)
• Cross-pack name collision (ManifestError naming both source
  packs)
• Modversion drift warning fires per emit_drift_signals
• 3-pack-together load (starter + compose + drift) in one
  VocabularyIndex construction

RFC-028 (deferred to v1.12.0) will be the architectural answer to
N-pack semantics; #145 is the engineering safety net under the
v1.11.0 loader.

Other engineering changes

• #100 — Darkroom-session umbrella opened with structured
  checklist (Sub-tasks A-D: tone-curve baselines #94, EXIF probes,
  curves #96, colorzones #98). Estimated ~3-4 hours.
• #119 — Hypothesis property-based fuzz tests for 18
  parameterize decoders (round-trip, idempotence, size-invariance).
• #129–#140 — Visual-proofs trust-gap closures, content-aware
  routing, AGENTS.md inversion (now canonical; CLAUDE.md +
  .cursorrules are thin pointers).
• Post-push CI verification — codified in AGENTS.md as a
  workflow rule (never walk away from a red CI).

Carryover from v1.10.0 release

The ADR-088/089/090 trio shipped Draft pending darkroom validation
in v1.10.0; they remain Draft. The new ADR-091/092/093 (RFC-039)
and ADR-094/095/096 (RFC-039 follow-ups) ship the same way.

What's next (v1.12.0)

• RFC-027 — Multi-photographer review phase plan
• RFC-028 — Pack management / multi-pack composition / vendor packs
• Possibly: the deferred darkroom-session work (tonecurve mv5
  decoder #94, colorzones spline fallback #98, EXIF baselines)
  promoted from #100 — depending on whether you sit down with the
  GUI.