I don’t hesitate do admit that usually I “develop” digital photos in RawTherapee mainly using the Exposure and the Transformation tool tabs, using a subset of available functions.
My brother came to me the other day and showed me how he’d develop a photo I made, but refused to use RawTherapee because he don’t know it, using Lightroom instead (forcing me to (a) restart on Windows and (b) install LR which I don’t own ).
He produced the attached photo.
In particular, he (as far as I remember):
reduced the lightness of the yellow channel (LAB regulations?)
reduced the clearliness of the photo to reduce the shadow of the bag
saturated a bit the color lost with the clearliness reduction
augmented the “texture” to regain details on the subject
used some brushed-only region regulations to vamp the yellow at the base of the image
removed some imperfections with an auto-clone-like tool (see the glass ball-like thing at the front of the bag), also reducing the lightness of the reflected lights
I was wondering where I could learn how to:
a) reproduce the 6 steps described above and
b) which ones should I use with a specialized software, like GIMP or Krita, if necessary
Thank you very much
P.S.
I haven’t found the PP3 relative file of Lightroom, if it produces any…
P.P.S.
As an extra, it would be awesome if RawTherapee got a duster to remove all that dust, too possibly making a coffee and a hot chocolate, too
Exact replica won’t be easy, but I think this comes close enough for most intents and purposes. You would have to use local adjustments to get rid of the shadows. If you view in 100% zoom you’ll see that RawTherapee easily outperforms Lightroom in terms of fine detail preservation.
Without a good reference for the colours and the hindrance of (at least) 4 different light sources it is rather hard to get a result that reflects anything close to being real.
I did not try to copy/match the colours from the above posted LR image, I took a chance and picked a white colour (or so I think) from something on the desk.
Ideally you would fix the lighting on the oblect, if that isn’t an option then the image should be pulled into GIMP/Krita to properly fix the background. RawTherapee can do a reasonable job using the Local Adjustments tab.
Thank you very much for all the replies this is really an awesome community - I’ll study the PP3 files to know what you did and study the relative tools on the wiki .
BTW besides the LR render or yours, I forgot to mention the effect I wanted to achieve which is vivid colors 'a’la “United Colors of Benetton” (if you know what I mean).
I used RT Dev with Local Adjustments. I did not try for perfection, so there is still rom for improvement.
Started with auto-matched curve - ISO low
Lab Adjustments to add lightness, raise yellow luminosity, lower blue luminosity
Increase Soft Light
Haze removal
Noise reduction
** Local Adjustments**
Reduced the shadows using a whole image spot on the background and used Dynamic Range & Exposure > Contrast attenuator
Reduced overexposure of yellow flowers with Dynamic Range & Exposure > Exposure Compensation, Dynamic Range & Exposure > Dynamic range compression, Dehaze and retinex
Reduced glare on bead with Dehaze and retinex
Reduced some yellow cast on hand with Color & Light
).
possibly making a coffee and a hot chocolate, too 
- I’ll study the PP3 files to know what you did and study the relative tools on the wiki 
