Hi Everyone, new here and as posted in the Darktbale subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTable/comments/1kputtv/getting_frustrated_with_editing/
i am having difficulties with darktable, and wanted to understand how you would edit the following picture so that i can have a look, learn, and understand if i am bad at taking photos, editing them or both ahaha.
the photo was taken by me while on holiday so it’s licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike
Please include you XMP file so i can have a look at what you did and compare with mine.
Welcome to the forum. This edit is DT 5.1 but it should open fine in DT5.0. I wanted to bring out the color in the sky and pumped up the warm tones and the blues using the color zones and color equalizer modules.
Hey there! Welcome to the forum, happy to see you joined us over here :-)!
I think it is interesting that everybody in this thread opted for a coloured edit. When importing your photo into darktable I was also struck by how pleasent the gentle colours look out of the box with darktables defaults. I found it somewhat challenging to strike a good balance between the very dark rock in the foreground and the sky. The tone equalizer doesn’t always work well for me. Here I used a second copy of colour balance rgb with a mask tuned to the dark shadows to brighten the shadows. I also felt it helped to brighten the whole lower right corner with a masked instance of exposure.
I went with a different crop, but kept to the “natural” look others have posted. I found that the using color was easier to keep the differnt layers of the sky distinct, while preserving an overall tonality that was balanced. Although cranking contrasts in the sky/water and making the rock/fishermen mere silhouette could work?
Hi and welcome! Fellow newbie, here. Using DT5.0.1
I let the highlights clip a little to bring out the sunset. I used colour balance RGB to bring up general vibrance, then a second instance to lift the yellows and oranges a bit further. Also tone equaliser to bring up the contrast on the waves and clouds.
B+W I found tricky. I think masking on the sky would allow you to bring out more depth in the clouds without killing the detail on the rocks. (but I’m still terrible at masking )
Amazing, thank you all.
Way more photos than i had hoped so this will keep me busy for a while, i will look at them one by one in my free time.
Really appreciate what you did for me.
And very interesting than you all kept it in color.
Can’t help with darktable but, having looked at the .CR2, I would suggest less capture exposure bearing in mind that the cyan sky at top left is almost blown in the raw and assuming that the sky is the main subject - maybe -1 to -2 EV. Then bring up the shadows/sea to taste in post.
Out of shear curiosity I tried for a quick Sabastio (sp?) Salgado like look. This is just a proof of concept done on my laptop. It would need to be honed (significantly) more. IMG_9304.CR2.xmp (20.9 KB)
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