Masked portions different in preview and export

Software darktable
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41

I started with the JPEG order. That is important, because the input data is not linearly encoded (like with raw), but has a ‘gamma’ (TRC) applied.
I increased the exposue (now it was done on linearly encoded data, because we are after input color profile – the main difference to the raw module order, where exposue comes before it).

I then used astrophoto denoise, which is good at blurring surfaces; I found it a good match for the JPG file (heavy sharpening after noise reduction in the camera). That was step 6.
In step 7, I tried sharpening with diffuse or sharpen. However, I noticed that it comes before astrophoto denoise, that is why I Ctrl+dragged it above (I did not want to first sharpen the noise, then filter it out; I wanted to first reduce the noise, and then enhance the details). That is the reason for the custom order.
The rest were smaller adjustments to exposure, sharpening and noise reduction settings.

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Thank you! Is there some place I can read about the interaction of these modules? In any case your workflow gives some useful hints too.

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I just used logic. Sharpening increases noise, so you don’t want to do that. This is not specific to darktable.
There are great module and workflow tutorials on YouTube (see at the bottom of resources | darktable, for example), and there is the documentation (plus, of course, discuss.pixls.us :slight_smile: ). I recommend the work-in-progress, development version of the manual: darktable 4.4 user manual - darktable

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