Birches on Christmas morning

ART

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My version of GIMP 2.10.30 LAB

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Indeed, I really enjoy it too! There are so many different ways to view this scene.

The lighter ones are the closest to my memory of the scene.Tthe darker ones by @Jade_NL and @heckflosse certainly convey a very different but powerful story.

Finland indeed, somewhere quite near Tampere :slight_smile: And thanks!

I got somewhat inspired by some Vallila designs while taking and editing the picture… :smiley:

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They do. My first edit was all about bright warm yellows vs darker cold blues. The sun is a bit of a challenge to get right, though.

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PC250107.pfi (46.7 KB)

A simple edit with sigmoid tonemapping and @ilia3101 saturation method adapted to work with the rgb ratios
https://discuss.pixls.us/t/3-4-scene-referred-workflow-bad-bokeh-highlights-reconstruction/22135/60

pixel =(rgb-y)*sat_fac+new_Y

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I hadn’t seen any renditions similar to how I envisioned it, so this is my take with Filmulator:

  • Auto CA Correct 1
  • Highlight Recovery 2
  • Exposure Compensation -5/6
  • Temperature 5125 (to warm it up to roughly daylight WB)
  • NR on
  • Chroma NR 22 (both for noise and to help tame color fringing)
  • Shadow Rolloff Point 0.0407 (to crisp up the shadows)
  • Drama 59
  • White Clipping Point 0.526
  • Shadow Brightness 567 (to help lift the midtones in opposition to the shadow rolloff tool)
  • Highlight Brightness 1000 to boost the sky

Overall I feel this captures the warmth and brightness of the sun in contrast to the shadowy blue snow.

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PC250107.ORF.xmp (10.4 KB)

I feel like if you’ve overblown the highlights, then show it in grand style. :slight_smile:

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That’s a very good rendition of the highlights indeed! @CarVac’s result is also pretty impressive.

Here’s another try of mine. Tried to emphasize the blue patches of the sky a bit more while also rolling off the chroma of the red areas for a more natural look. Added a final “diffuse or sharpen” instance to recover a bit of the local contrast that was lost when I aimed for a quite light look.

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Very nice image. Is this method producing good results for you?

It’s just a variation on taking the gradient of the curve, so it’s not that special. But I like getting mentioned :slightly_smiling_face:

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Amazing image, thank you! I went for a dreamy and creamy edit. :slight_smile:

RT5.8 dev


PC250107.jpg.out.pp3 (29.9 KB)

Happy New Year, everyone!

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@flannelhead Thanks for the image. I am partial to birches because I have one in my front yard. Limp like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree but a survivor.

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Happy New Year! This is a very beautiful one, very light and achieves a certain “3D look” in the trees despite the creaminess. Thank you!

I have tried to load your jpgs as sidecars without success. Is it me or do they not include the sidecar? If not, I’d be interested in seeing them.

My attempt:


Tried to add a teeny bit of haloing to the small branches that are directly in the path of the light, and some haze around the rest of the branches to get that early morning/bleary eyed feeling

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@condor700 Welcome to the forum. Good start to the new year. :partying_face:

Strange, I have “develop history” checked in export settings but loading the JPGs as sidecar files doesn’t seem to work for me either. I wonder what’s wrong… Anyway, here are the XMPs.

PC250107.ORF.xmp (52.8 KB)
PC250107_01.ORF.xmp (173.4 KB)

Also welcome @condor700 ! Nice to see a different crop and atmosphere and the use of complementary colors.

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This is how I remember it that morning. :rofl:

PC250107_16.ORF.xmp (25.4 KB)

That’s where the sun is at 11:00 a.m. in Finland in December?!!

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I like the very natural look here - nice blues in the sky but the snow is still rendered as white. Great job!

And yes, there’s not much daylight here at this point of the year. :snowflake:

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PC250107.ORF.xmp (11.3 KB)

DT 3.8

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