Processing this image with Darktable, I am having difficulty getting a pleasing result. The wierd thing is, another photo taken 50 meters further down the promenade looks just fine to me. Just trying to make the image pop a little. I either end up making it dull and lifeless or overly yellowish.
Interested to see how others would process it.
_DSC0028.nef (22.7 MB)
This file is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal. You are free to do with it whatever you wish.
Quick try from me. 
I didn’t try to lighten the foreground as I think it works better as a silhouette with a hint of detail.
_DSC0028.nef.xmp (10.1 KB)
Very different results indeed. I am going to take a look at the xmp files. I never thought of keeping the fisherman in silhouette. I am very interested in color balance RGB to create some different base line looks.
_DSC0028-1.jpg.out.pp3 (14,5 KB)
The grey walkway has lost all texture in this one
Does anybody find that the image is difficult to work with? Is my raw image somewhat flat and dull? I know raw images are dull and need post processing, but I just can’t seem to liven this one up.
Which part do you want livened up? I mainly worked on bringing up the fisherman and his stuff . I also tried to deepen the coloration of the water, without changing it to a fake color. But I guess the ship should be the main thing. Or, it could be the buildings of the city.
Lovely capture; love the sense of motion and compression.
Went for a “midday” grade; tried to center the ship as subject with angler as secondary focal point.
And to answer your question, @thehatterman, if you’re able to attach a sidecar file we can take a look at your processing. Thanks for sharing!
I tried to keep the light on the ship and the buildings warm (did not succeed, I prefer @123sg’s version), while making the sky and the water bluer.
That’s pretty much been my problem as well, i can’t seem to liven up the ship and buildings. I end up making it all yellowish. I quite prefer the fisherman in silhouette as well.
Is it because the buildings and the ship are grey? Is it simply that there is no colour to bring out? If I remember right, they were in direct light of a descending sun.
Based on these, the Liver Building has fairly neutral colours:
However, with warm sunlight, it does look yellowish:
The ship itself is probably close to white. BTW, the ship in the photo is HMS Queen Elizabeth R08; HMS Prince of Wales (R09) R09 is the other ship of the same class. Not that I would know, just found this when looking for photos of the ship.
You are a genius sir. All this while I thought it was the HMS Prince of Wales. DOH!!!
I never really thought of looking up other photos to get a feel for what things look like, the grey building going yellow in the sun is pretty obvious now that I look at those photos.
That’s definitely a huge overstatement. I just Googled, and the pages on Wikipedia listed the numbers.
Regarding the colours of the buildings, I’ve now found photos take under overcast conditions, that still show relatively warm-coloured stones, for example here:
