Bringing up the skyline

Last night I went out the shoot the skyline of my hometown.
The condition were bad and there are not many details in the sky.
Struggled with it all afternoon and brought it up the this.
I am reasonably satisfied but i can’t mange to “pop out” the skyline a little bit more, also the trees on top looks a little bit washed out.
My history is a mess because I tried a lot. :slight_smile:


_DSC0609.NEF (24.8 MB)
_DSC0609_01.NEF.xmp (23.7 KB)

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

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I might be able to give you an idea about how to tackle the contrast and sharpness of the trees/green foreground. I’m not going to touch the sky though…


skyline.nikon.d5300.xmp (15.3 KB) darktable 3.0.2

I’m not too fond of too much saturation myself, but you can crank it up for the greens using the color zones or color balance module. Also have a look at the masks I used to separate sky and the rest, might come in handy with tinkering with the sky.

Anyway, hope this helps.

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For me that is the problem in this image. Hard to make something out of material that was made in a bad condition.

Can you go back to that location when the sun is in your back an shines on that skyline? Best would be around sundawn or sundown

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Tricky one!
I’d say that your sky is better than mine, but my trees are better than yours :slight_smile:


_DSC0609_02.NEF.xmp (11.4 KB)
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

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yeah your trees are much better.

Thanks it wil help, thank you

I know the photo is bad but I am trying to learn as much as possible what darktable can do.
I thought this was a good practice foto for me :smiley:

That’s true, but it’s a tough one to edit: The buildings are very similar to the sky background and the image noise is strong.

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_DSC0609.NEF.xmp (12.3 KB)

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Not so easy but fun, thanks for posting

DT 3.0.2

_DSC0609.NEF.xmp (15.7 KB)

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Tried to keep some detail.


_DSC0609.NEF.xmp (17.4 KB)

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a-_DSC0609.jpg.out.arp (12.0 KB)

or with crop

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amazing job, thank you

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated, it is helping me a lot to get a better understanding of Darktable.