Hi all, for my first play RAW entry I thought this might be interesting.
A campdraft is an Australian equestrian event based around handling cattle - I expect there’s an equivalent in the US…
How do you think it should look?
DSC05537.ARW (12.3 MB)
DSC05537.ARW.xmp (7.9 KB)
This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.
PS in case anyone is curious the lens is a classic Pentax 50mm - no exif data!
DSC05537.ARW.xmp (17.2 KB)
Thanks for all the replies 
It’s very interesting to see the different results. I like them all!
My initial version of this image after I took it was quite a quick basic edit, not that different to the ooc jpeg version, but the version I posted here I did last night.
@age, your version is possibly closest to mine but I think I prefer the colours in yours to mine. I went a bit overboard enhancing the reddish brown dust!
@Thomas_Do, at first I thought yours looked a bit ‘flat’, but once I looked closer I like the way it emphasises (for me) the dust and sort of flat lighting, yet without looking harsh… at least that’s my thought atm.
@7osema, at first I though your version looked a bit cold. But again, once looked a bit longer, it looks just right, and there’s something very nice about the tones too.
Thanks!
Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to achieve. For me the dust is the main feature.
Just bog-standard rawproc filmic, and a bit of crop to put emphasis on the subjects:
In the US, it’s “rodeo” for the most part. I don’t know too much about it, but I live in the middle of its territory, with the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame and the Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association right across the freeway from where I live.
While down at Woomera for work a long time ago, on the weekend we went to a “gymkhana” somewhere north of there, for the life of me can’t remember where. It was interesting talking to ranchers where 200 miles separated nearest neighbors…
Hi Glenn,
Thanks for your version too (I need to look up just what rawproc is…) and for your thoughts on the subject. I thought rodeo might cover it, although we do have rodeos here too. To be honest I don’t know that much about it, but I expect what we call a rodeo may be different from yours. This shot was at Nimmitabel a small township (village) more or less in my area - the Monaro, which is the region sort of between the Far South Coast of NSW and the Snowy Mountains. Neighbours round here (once your’e out of town) tend to be more like 10km apart, so not quite like it is inland There was 6 inches of snow on the ground here last winter, only for a couple of days though.
https://github.com/butcherg/rawproc
Got somewhat close to Nimmitabel on my first trip down under, a vacation arranged by my father-in-law. Melbourne - Sydney was a road trip through Canberra, beautiful country. We afternooned in a small hamlet called Wee Jasper, bowling and drinking beer while our guides arranged for alternate transportation when our Wombat (one of the guides was an offroad sort who got pressed into “civilised” service) broke its axle. Glorious afternoon…
Whatever the blob was in the lower right corner worked well for a white balance pick. In RT-dev.
Thanks for this photograph and the opportunity to play with it.
Two versions in GIMP. One where I tried to lessen the effect of the dust, the other where I increased it.
Thanks Dan. Everyone else too. It’s been very interesting seeing all the different versions
Thanks for sharing!
I looked at your image, saw the skies and thought ‘that could be fixed’. Then was pleasantly surprised that nothing was clipped in the highlights (except a specular thing on the helmet).
So I did my ‘default’ stuff… and then compared to yours… and mine was lacking something. Always interesting when that happens 
. “What did they do that I apparently like that I didn’t do”.
And it’s whatever you’ve done with the dust in the cloud that draws it in. It’s bright, punchy, saturated. Makes it stand out.
I ended up adding a color-balance-rgb instance, which I masked to the hue (Jh) range of the sand/dust (so the brownish) with help of the picker. Then I took the luma/brightness range (Jz) to only target the brighter parts of it. With some feathing, a nice mask for the ‘bright flying dust’. Then added contrast and cranked saturation on it, and played a bit with a hue shift ever so slightly more to red.
Oh, and I played with dehaze to get something ‘more’ happening with the dust and the horse and the color. Otherwise, it looked so muted compared to yours. While looking at the overall more muted versions, I also kinda like them .
The rest is pretty standard. Raise exposure, set filmic, notice I want more shadows so add a tone equalizer to lift them a bit.
Anyway, I don’t even think I’m happy with the dust… but I knew I wanted ‘something’ with it. I guess this is one of those images I will revisit every once in a while to see what I make of it .
Hi jorismak, thanks for the thoughts! I really enjoy seeing how someone else approaches an image.
It’s a while ago that I did that image now, and I’m actually thinking I overcooked it a bit… 
The sky is a bit odd for one thing. I think (IIRC) I used local contrast which made a big difference to the dust, and also some fiddling with 4 ways in color balance rgb. No masking though… I think.
I like your version - more clear and crisp. And I think more true to life.
