I’m a beginner trying to use darktable on a recent trip I took to Japan. I’m stuck on this one photo that I love the composition of, but I can’t decide what to do with this one!
Raw:
IMG_8149.CR2 (28.6 MB)
XMP:
IMG_8149.CR2.xmp (17.9 KB)
Original:
My first attempt:
This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.
I kept the processing simple and mainly used the tone equalizer to lift the shadows and not lose the highlights. You mentioned that you are new to Darktable, so I recommend trying out Sigmoid instead of filmic as I feel it is easier to master and produces nicer results straight out of the box. Filmic is a good tool but is more demanding on the user and often with no benefit over sigmoid. That is just my view and I know others here would disagree and would prefer to use filmic.
IMG_8149.CR2.xmp (17.0 KB)
Here is another take where I cropped and used a second instance of exposure to brighten just the deer.
Hi and welcome. 
Nice shot, albeit tricky to bring out the best.
I used a few masks - ask if you need any explanation of what I’ve done. I expect you know but you can load other xmp files via the button in lighttable view.
I have to admit, the photo doesn’t work well for me - there is so much distraction 
I mean, it is an interesting situation, but there are so much details, that it’s hard to focus on the deer.
I don’t think my edit fixes this well, but I share it anyways just to show my thought process.
Nothing too technical, just getting to something that pleases me. dt 4.6.1
My play in GIMP.
I have tried to crop so that it retains the context while removing some of the background. I used an old-fashioned contrast mask and then slight adjustments with luminosity masks.
Thanks for sharing everyone! I’ve got some good ideas of what I can do with this photo now!
