Achieving pastel colors

nish · February 10, 2024, 5:30am

I wrote a blog post on how to get pastel colors in darktable, and thought it would be fun to see others’ take on how to do this. Here’s the image from the blog post (which is actually a cell phone shot!) and my edit.
PXL_20210711_223155650.dng (12.6 MB)
PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (21.7 KB)

This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.

tbransco · February 10, 2024, 6:46am

Interesting challenge, @Nish.

I had a go with RT and tried to keep the sky saturated, to set off the amusement park colours a bit. I corrected the vignetting a bit first at upper right, then went to work with the colour correction regions of the Color Toning tool. Not a roaring success isolating the sky from the blues in the park, but there you go.

PXL_20210711_223155650.jpg.out.pp3 (15.2 KB)

age · February 10, 2024, 8:55am

Thanks for the tutorial
PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (12.0 KB)

Popanz · February 10, 2024, 9:47am

My take on pastel colours…

20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (20.0 KB)

hanatos · February 10, 2024, 9:54am

vkdt render. pushed saturation a lot + low contrast curve treatment (feels most like what i think you mean by pastel colours).

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.cfg (3.4 KB)

jonathanBieler · February 10, 2024, 10:05am

PXL_20210711_223155650.jpg.out.pp3 (18.3 KB)

Thomas_Do · February 10, 2024, 10:24am

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (12.9 KB)

rasterized · February 10, 2024, 10:43am

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (12.8 KB)

jonathanBieler · February 10, 2024, 10:49am

Another attempt using CIECAM advanced mode :

PXL_20210711_223155650-1.jpg.out.pp3 (18.3 KB)

user144 · February 10, 2024, 3:51pm

My version, using ART.

achieving-pastel-colors.jpg.out.arp (11.1 KB)
I like the result, feels pretty Pastelish in my eyes.
CORRECTION: I checked online some color pallets, and this is not Pastel AT ALL.
For some reason that’s what came to my mind when I thought “Pastel”.
Still very vivid and I still like it.
Thank you for the play

Popanz · February 10, 2024, 4:27pm

A second version:

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (15.1 KB)

lightlover · February 10, 2024, 7:56pm

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (11.2 KB)

I haven’t seen the tutorial, sorry.
Take a look now, thanks.

Zbyma72age · February 10, 2024, 8:38pm

My fun in GIMP

and

dqpcoxeas · February 10, 2024, 9:11pm

My version…

PXL_20210711_223155650.dng.xmp (14.0 KB)

Terry · February 11, 2024, 12:23am

Here is my attempt by just lowering the global vibrance slider. It is similar to just lowering the chroma slider but for this image the vibrance produced slightly better color in the end result in my opinion.