I had a lot of fun with this photo, getting the same result using various tools, but each with its own twist.
It’s really not a difficult image to process, as the light was as great as one can expect being natural, so the dynamic range is quite low and easy to manage. What you need to do here is to adjust the exposure without clipping colors. The three easiest ways of doing so in RawTherapee are using the Exposure tool’s curves with their various modes, using the LH (Luminance as a function of hue) tool in Lab* Adjustments, or using the LC (Luminance as a function of chromaticity) tool also in Lab* Adjustments. These three are not mutually exclusive so you could even use all three at once though there’s no need to.
Here are three versions.
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This one uses the LC curve to reduce the luminance of highly saturated colors.
DSF0737 morgan LC.jpg.out.pp3 (9.6 KB)
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This one uses the LH curve to do the same. The LH curve does what the LC does but on a per-color basis, so it’s generally more powerful. I lowered the luminance of the reds which in itself has an amazing effect, and then increased the luminance of the yellows to add depth. The flower pops more. Open the images in tabs and switch back and forth, you will see the flower pop out in this one.
DSF0737 morgan LH.jpg.out.pp3 (9.9 KB)
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Both of the above use a CIECAM02 Brightness curve, because it increases brightness in a easy way without clipping anything. This one also uses LH, but CIECAM02 is disabled, and to achieve the same brightening effect I used both Exposure curves; darkening with one using the Film-like method, brightening with the other using the Luminance method.
DSF0737 morgan LH ExposureCurves.jpg.out.pp3 (10.0 KB)
