Just starting out. Please help.

Software darktable
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HI all hope this is the right place to post this. I am just starting out with DT. And would like to ask for some help on editing a pic. I want to straighten, remove the wires and just over all make it pop…
DSC00857.ARW (18.4 MB)

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To straighten: darktable 4.2 user manual - rotate and perspective
To remove the wires: darktable 4.2 user manual - retouch
To make it pop: darktable 4.2 user manual - local contrast, darktable 4.2 user manual - color balance rgb with the vibrant colors preset, maybe darktable 4.2 user manual - diffuse or sharpen with the local contrast preset.

Please read the manual and check videos on youtube. No one has time to explain all the processing to each new user.

You may want to post a PlayRaw, and learn from what the others do. Please read here first: About the Play Raw category.

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Thank you for the resources. :smiley:

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Also, try this: darktable 3.0 for dummies (in 3 modules)
It’s a bit old.

  • Instead of filmic, we now have filmic rgb and sigmoid (many find the latter easier to use).
    darktable 4.2 user manual - filmic rgb
    darktable 4.2 user manual - sigmoid
    Those two are responsible for mapping the potentially large dynamic range of the scene to the limited dynamic range of the screen. You can adjust contrast in both (as well as in color balance rgb).
  • Instead of color balance, we have color balance rgb. I’ve mentioned that above.
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DSC00857.ARW.xmp (9.8 KB)
DSC00857_01.ARW.xmp (9.8 KB)

Try those XMPs. Download them to any directory, make two duplicates of the image on the ligthttable, and load the sidecars. Read more in the darktable 4.2 user manual - history stack under load sidecar file.
Minimal processing, with default sigmoid or close-to-default filmic settings (only filmic’s white relative exposure was changed using the auto-picker). The rest of the modules are those which I suggested in my first reply: local contrast, color balance rgb with a preset, diffuse or sharpen with the local contrast and sharpen demosaicing: AA filter preset. diffuse or sharpen can be painfully slow without a GPU.

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Quick one with sloppy wire removal… didn’t finish the job… with more care selecting the objects and regions you can do a better job…
DSC00857.ARW.xmp (17.3 KB)

Welcome to the group…

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@Jokersloose : if you added a licence that allowed the publication of ‘derivative works’, we’d be able to upload the JPGs, not only the sidecars, so you could see the result immediately.

An example licence (also suggested for PlayRaws) is:

This file is licensed [Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
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  1. Brighten exposure to +2.4 EV in exposure module
  2. Apply auto tune levels in filmic rgb module’s scene tab
  3. Activate local contrast module to default values.
  4. Activate shadows and highlights module to default values
  5. Activate the color balance rgb module by selecting the pre-set basic colorfullness: Vibrant
  6. Apply initial sharpness by using the diffuse or sharpen module’s pre-set demosaicing sharpness AA filter
  7. Create a new instance of the diffuse or sharpen module and select the pre-set lens deblur: hard to sharpen the image further as it looked a little soft to my eyes.
  8. Activate the denoise (profiled) module to default values.
  9. Use the rotate and perspective module to straighten the image.
  10. The lens correction module might have been good to use but it did not identify your lens so I didn’t use it.

I would post the image here, but I presume it is against forum policy without the attached licence.

Also, the method I have done is just one of many approaches people would use. The PlayRaw category is great for learning how to process images and seeing the various approaches people have.