Clouds over the mountains

My attempt with darktable 4.0.1. I find I end up being satisfied with what I’ve done with the sky or the foreground, but not both at the same time.


P1010119.ORF.xmp (7.8 KB)
P1010119.ORF (13.6 MB)

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Can you not then mask to achieve both?? Just curious …

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Could you give an example of the sky you want and the foreground you want. As Todd mentioned, this should be an easy fix with masks which is one of the great strengths of DT.

Here’s the edit from above with filmic rgb disabled:

Even though it does blow the highlights a bit I like the contrast in the sky more than the original. On the other hand, the foreground here looks maybe a bit more hazy than I would like.

Using masks does make sense. I’ll try that next.

There is a haze removal module in DT which can be handy.

With masks I often use a drawn paths mask and blur and feather the edges to get an invisible transition. There is also a nice gradient mask and even parametric masks. The mask in DT are what made me choose DT over other programs such as RawTherapee, Lightroom etc. The user guide is worth bookmarking and using for information about masks and other issues darktable 4.6 user manual - darktable

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Started from your xmp and then just started experimenting…landed here after a few tweaks… with all this color you could take this image in a few ways… cold and dark or bit warmer …the green could be tweaked to match reality or vision as could the sky…

P1010119.ORF.xmp (14.7 KB)

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Nice location… can I ask where it is? Ignore the question if you prefer :slightly_smiling_face:

My fairly quick version using the latest windows weekly build of 4.1 i.e. what will be 4.2.
Used sigmoid instead of filmic.


P1010119.ORF.xmp (9.2 KB)
it looks a little darker then I intended now I see it here… never mind.

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Yes it is. This was in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

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quick vkdt edit:

used a few brush strokes to mask the mountain, put an exposure (+0.9ev) and an ACES CDL colour grading node on the mask branch of the graph (to give the blueish cloud shadow the same tint as the rest of the mountain). the mask is blurred by a guided filter (it’s the default draw block i inserted).

the rest is default processing (left a bit of noise in there and didn’t do anything about sharpness or extra drama in the clouds).
config file:
P1010119.ORF.cfg (19.2 KB)

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My contribution…

two separate tone equalizers (sky and landscape), a bit of masked dehazing, and colors by taste via channel mixer.

In theses landscape shots I find myself often slicing the image with masks into different layers by distance, a bit elaborate, but gives finer control :man_shrugging: The detailed structures in the trees can sometimes be optimized with the demosaicing algorithm.


P1010119.ORF.xmp (41.8 KB)

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My version…

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Thanks for posting
darktable 4.0.1


P1010119_02.ORF.xmp (12.9 KB)

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Hi @Jesse_Cambon,

this is my version :blush:


P1010119.ORF.xmp (19.1 KB)

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Postcard! :smiley:

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darktable 4.0.1 P1010119.ORF.xmp (7,7 Ko)

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dt 4.0.1


P1010119.ORF.xmp (6.3 KB)

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dt 4.0.1
Very nice view !


P1010119_02.ORF.xmp (12,8 KB)

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P1010119.ORF.xmp (8.5 KB)

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P1010119.ORF.xmp (12.3 KB)

Darktable 4.1

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@Jesse_Cambon I haven’t understood what you were trying to obtain from the edit of your photo. To me it looks very good as it is. I love the depth of field guiding your eye in traversing kilometers of a green landscape, I love the contrast in the clouds and that impertinent shadow obscuring the top of the nearest hill (I’m captured by that holy shadow).

The trees are a little out of focus/blurred (a firm hand or a tripod could have helped, but who uses a tripod nowadays? I don’t), but not too much. You wouldn’t notice online at a standard magnification and probably it would be OK also in print.

I don’t like ‘Local contrast’ module in Darktable, I don’t even understand why that module is included in the list of all presets. It’s great for “local” contrast edits, but it ruins most of the real life photos making them look flat. It erases the overall lighting atmosphere, gradients and nuances that express the three dimensions of light and shadow.

In Darktable I also would stay away from ‘Haze removal’ module: if I take a shot of a scene where haze is there, probably I was pushed to shot that scene mainly because the haze was there in the first place, so it would be stupid by me to remove it ex-post. But there are always exceptions, and your shot is one of these. Haze removal works here.

Having said that… Congratulation for the nice photograph and thank you for the opportunity you gave us to play&learn with it.
My interpretation is something basic. In DT 4.2, I used Sigmoid (that I think you don’t have in DT 4.0), Haze removal and more than one instance of Diffuse or Sharpen (to sharpen the trees). The master photo was already more than OK from my point of view!


P1010119.ORF.xmp (9.4 KB)

EDIT: minor edits due to a different native language.

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