Help processing a photo set from an overcast day

Software darktable
1

Hi,

I’m Rafa, an amateur photographer. I’m using Darktable for a while but I’m not an expert in any way :slight_smile:

The past day I was doing photos during a vertical kilometer running because some friends were running. The day was overcast. I tried several times to process the photos but I don’t achieve good results.

I would like to know how I can process photos like this one uploaded to get good results. Any help, tips, examples are welcome.

An example (processed photo) :

3018×2010 2.85 MB

Original RAW file: https://filebin.net/tid9bh2asflct5c6/160909_141500-000.nef

Thank you very much!

2 Likes
2

What do you think is lacking in the image you posted? Honestly it looks pretty decent to me.

3

I imagine using F2.0 or even 1.8 which your fast lens supports would have blurred the background much better…

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4

Lacking courage (edit: directness), I wanted to ask the same question. Please explain, what would you like to make better.

5

I found this output example a little bit underexposed but if I change tone curve or levels it’s overexposed and spectators bright too much (orange and pink t-shirts ones). The grass was more bright (light yellow)

I tried different approaches for example tried to isolate the runner with a vignetting, saturate yellow(grass) and green(trees), desaturate “a la Ryan Millier”(example) …

I’m not sure what I can get from this photo that’s the problem.

Thanks

6

Next time I’ll do it. It was almost the first day using it but I learnt the lesson :slight_smile:

7

Looking forward to your next time version!

8

Two examples more.

Desaturate everything except red, add velvia, vignetting and ND filter to have a “blue sky”:

3018×2010 2.67 MB

Mainly desaturate everything excepts red and enhance blacks a little with exposure:

3018×2010 2.8 MB

Any other ideas? Thanks

1 Like
9

I might think about pulling the image into gimp and desaturating the spectators clothing, I think that’d pull focus back to the runner. You could also fake a shallow apateraure with some background blur.

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10

With darktable’s masking abilities, the spectators could be made, I believe, less intrusive even without the gimp. So could the background be made slightly more blurred and darker, but this would reduce the information, what kind of track the runner is dealing with.

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11

This is my try:

3018×2010 1.03 MB

and xmp:
160909_141500-000_05.nef.xmp (12,8 KB)

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12

Alright, here’s my quick try on this one :slight_smile: I just played around with colors and highlights.

900×599 160 KB

160909_141500-000.nef.xmp (4.1 KB)

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13

6036×4020 4.57 MB

Maybe 'cause I got drowned into his expression, partially inspired by 70’s (italian) horror films. Darktable + a bath in technicolor’s strip. Many nice versions, all the processing eating tomatoes. Cheers =)

3 Likes
14

There you go all gloomy desaturated and crushed contrast:

1024×682 280 KB

Looks similar to the example you posted but it’s definitely not my style so I can’t really tell how close it is. :slight_smile:

1 Like
15

I ran it through Filmulator and I think it looks really great with default settings. Only thing I changed from default was enabling auto CA correction.

4828×3215 3.17 MB

While it’s cloudy, it does have good directional light.

1 Like
16

Wow! Thank you very much for all your replies.

This evening I’ll examine one by one with Darktable.

PS: sorry for not replying soon I was out

17

I didn’t know about Filmulator , thanks for the pointer :slight_smile:

18

I wasn’t sure about which kind of photo I liked.

Could you process or give me some indications how you will work/process this photo, please?
(I ask you it because I saw you in other thread and it was awesome)

19

I think the picture works as it stands. I’d maybe bring out a tad more contrast especially on the subject but that’s about it. Depending on the mood you want you could also tweak the image a bit (especially the color balance).

It’s not an epic photograph, and I think if you wanted it to be epic you’d need different scenery (IMO). But as far as realistically depicting the event I do really think it pretty much works as it stands. Nevertheless I played with the image:


I don’t like how the red of the shirt is clipping (in SRGB) but I’m not entirely sure how to make it look better than that while preserving the intensity.

160909_141500-000_01.nef.xmp (23.6 KB)

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