Here’s a photo from my recent trip to Oman (SOOC):
After processing in RawTherapee, I made this:
I’m still working on the colour, but I’d be very interested in how others would approach noise reduction. I mostly prefer my edits over the SOOC jpg, but Nikon did a better job with noise reduction.
Here’s the raw:
TZ5_1506.NEF (28.9 MB)
And my pp3:
TZ5_1506-1.jpg.out.pp3 (14.2 KB)
These files are licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.
Wow your treatment is so much better than the jpeg. Love how you handled the highlights.
Which program did you use for that?
EDIT: never mind, I see in the xmp file references to darktable!
EDIT
couple done using ART
TZ5_1506-4.jpg.out.arp (13.4 KB)
TZ5_1506-1.jpg.out.arp (12.7 KB)
EDIT2
While zooming in I landed on a tight crop look that I like as well…
DT 5.3 with AgX. I used tone equalizer module to recover detail in the white clothing and reduce the shadows on the face. AgX then recovered the contrast
TZ5_1506.NEF.xmp (11.9 KB)
A version with a little more contrast. I felt the first one looked a little flat after posting it.
TZ5_1506.NEF.xmp (13.4 KB)
My try. I thought there are too many distractions in the photo, like the man standing behind and the wooden structure in the back. Just played with AgX and CB (a bit)
Nizwa-TZ5_1506.NEF.xmp (35.1 KB)
My try with RT. I should do more with it, I’m not used to it that much anymore.
reducing the chromatic noise already gives a good result, at least for me:
TZ5_1506-1.jpg.out.pp3 (16,4 KB)
Noise? What noise? I did only the usual of raw de-noise and and some chroma noise reduction. Then … I added some grain to cover up any other non-uniform noise. Great image, but I feel that my composition is not ideal. The man with the white t-shirt in the background is a bit distracting (ideal use-case for AI based removal?).
I like this version. It feels very … search for word … elegant.
GIMP.
A slight boost to the colours using colour-mixer. Lightened the right-hand side of the faces. Having read the comment by DanielLikesDT I went back and reduced the intensity of the white shirt and gave it a slight tint.
Only very slight noise reduction as I don’t think it distracts from the image.
ok ok, message received: I’ll clone out the guy in the t-shirt 
that looks great!
It’s a complex photo (for me) in terms of color. I always try to make the whites and blacks look almost gray, according to a color picker. The face of the person playing the bagpipes also gave me a “human” look. So this is my take.
