Bringing more clarity to this low light scene without ending with too much noise and too much grain is difficult. (at least for me, it is)
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IMG_0790.CR2 (23.3 MB)
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Here is my edit DT 5.6 non-AI denoising options. It wasn’t noisy enough for me to reach for AI denoising. @LaurentFromSF I would have been interested in seeing your in the software you have created.
IMG_0790.CR2.xmp (15.9 KB)
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Sorry, I have been interrupted while posting… But here is my best effort, a bit late:
Not done much: crop just a bit on the sides, added some exposure (gamma), added some extra illumination at the bottom, but could not figure out better colours - none of my LUTs would help here. Zero sharpening, I tried some but it was just creating additional noise and grain.
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I didn’t change the color because this color seems like I would expect during fire dancing. As for sharpening I used the old school sharpening module in DT with a threshold set to avoid sharpening the noise. I sometimes do this with noisy images. I also used capture sharpening in the demosaic module.
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On my craptop in a dark room…so I have no idea what this is going to look like lol.
I fiddled with highlight reconstruction some (just to get it in the ballpark), adjusted WB, quick and dirty denoise via profiled denoise, pulled down the highlights a bit in the over exposed areas, painted out some distractions and added a tiny bit of local contrast.
IMG_0790.CR2.xmp (19.1 KB)
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IMG_0790.CR2.xmp (7.1 KB)
Darktable 5.6.1 with Neural Restore is really good for older cameras DSLR or Mirroless APS-C , FF or maybe even M 4/3. Simple edit with AgX, cleaner natural and balanced.
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Fun, and had an opportunity to use the Shadows & highlights pre-tone mapper in RT 5.13. Plus a bit of CIECAM colour adjustment.
Thanks for sharing
IMG_0790.jpg.out.pp3 (19.2 KB)
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I couldn’t get much colour into the fire but this was fun. Tried ‘incandescent’ illuminant but it made the shadows and fire too blue.
Too much profiled denoise and the side of the middle guy’s face gets a bit wonky, so I coupled it with other denoise methods.
IMG_0790.CR2.xmp (34.4 KB)
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I decided to have another play in DT 5.7 but using AI denoising (Raw denoise set to 34%) to give a helping hand. BTW, I have seen fire dancers a few times and I must say they really are more like the color captured by the camera rather than ‘corrected’.
IMG_0790_raw-denoise.dng.xmp (13.8 KB)
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Thanks to everyone who posted so far.
Now I am convinced that my code should provide a de-noising step.
I also need to figure out why ‘my’ colours are going that much into the red…
I will (hopefully) post a new edit when it’s done…
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OK; straight RapidRaw (but did do PNG to JPG in the GIMP since I was going to do more tweaking but decided to just play with Raw distiller alone). 
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Might (or not) do something with this, but decided that, at the very least make a seamless texture out of the earlier result.
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AVIF + Gain map HDR version attached. Open in a Chromium browser on an HDR display to see it correctly. Created entirely with HDRFinisher.
DSC00264_finished.zip (1.7 MB)
Not that easy. I’m a bit torn. I like @Terry’s very warm edits because fire means warmth for me. I’m used to a scenery where the shine of fire is drenching the whole area in a warm and cosy mood.
There are some edits, where the inner flames are not transporting any warmth any more and on some the smoke is already somewhat greenish/blueish — at least if my little OLED laptop screen isn’t completely off.
On the other hand a very warm WB means taking away these fine nuances of colours in this picture. So I decided to try what usually never works. Choosing a path in the middle. I’m not completely happy with it. At the moment I have only my alptop at hand, so I’m not able to reliably judge my edits.
Anyway:
IMG_0790.CR2.xmp (17,6 KB)
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