I don’t think I’ve ever done this before. But I’d like to see how people process this one. First my attempt:
and here is the raw:
AAA_8189.nef (13.8 MB)
This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.
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Hi @Colin_Adams,
Thanks. Much oompf in this UFO. Here is my attempt:
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
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i did two renditions one in rawproc and the other in vkdt. First, rawproc:
And now, vkdt:
I used my Nikon Z 6 color profile in the rawproc version, vkdt used the rawspeed-supplied matrix, I guess. In both, the only manipulation was to introduce lightness and contrast with the respective filmic curves, then a roughly equivalent crop. Oh, and a denoise.
This is the best illustration of color difference between a matrix and ssf profile I’ve seen yet; greens are ‘greener’ with the ssf profile.
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cool! of course now i need to show another vkdt render. created an input profile from dcp (camera neutral) via vkdt-mkssf:
not sure this profile is any more valid than the matrix, it looks a bit brownish to me.
though in your render it mainly looks a lot darker? maybe increasing the light in the film curve would make it more similar?
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Yeah, I did mess with light a bit, but didn’t spend any time making them equivalent.
I love the software, though. Speedy-quick; in rawproc I had to switch out my nlmeans denoise for wavelet after the posted image; it was just taking too long…
In vkdt I can get the greens “greener” with the white-green slider in the color module; a lot easier than making a ssf profile from scratch… 
Thanks for the Play Raw! Nice catch.
I decided to make this my first play raw attempt using vkdt… jumping on the bandwagon.
I’m finding it very interesting - feels a little bit like a stripped out race car, very fast but not many creature comforts. Whereas in comparison, darktable feels like a… not a Rolls… a comfortable, reasonably powerful station wagon! Mercedes maybe. 
AAA_8189.nef.cfg (3.0 KB)
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I describe darktable to my photography students as a Lamborghini where you can even rebuild the engine and gearbox if you like. Definitely the car to take for a drive on the weekend. In comparison I describe Lightroom as the automatic car that is great for driving around town and for the grocery shopping to get the job done quickly, easily and mindlessly. 
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Another version using dt 4.2.
AAA_8189.nef.xmp (17.8 KB)
I think that’s a good analogy! I think it’s just that vkdt is just more at the development stage, combined with me being unfamiliar with it, which makes darktable seem much more comfortable 
This is a great shot and you should be proud of catching this dragonfly with such good focus and so close up. Being well exposed made it a breeze to process. Also the blurry green background made it easy to apply extra denoising in the green regions using a parametric mask and the diffuse or sharpen module.
AAA_8189.nef.xmp (12.4 KB)
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I prefer the vkdt version
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This is a routine shot for me. I specialise in dragonflies in flight (and this species - Aehsna grandis in particular.) Distance was probably 4 metres.
I haven’t tried using a parametric mask to separate the background. I thought the hues are normally too similar. I normally use a drawn mask around the dragonfly, for sharpening, and then invert it for smoothing the background.
Normally I crop the dragonfly tight. But in this instance, I tried concentric ellipses to rotate the background hue, to obtain a sort of colour-vignette.
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