My attempt using darktable.
_PIC6611.NEF.xmp (9.7 KB)
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That’s a lovely capture. I cropped and rotated the image, applied haze removal, tweaked the levels, added a bit of split toning, light denoise and sharpen, and spot removal to take out the more annoying specs, using DarkTable 2.4.4.
_PIC6611.NEF.xmp (6.0 KB)
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The old and the new meet in mine: first an UltraWarp++++, then a JIFF self-bomb blend.
I think it is quite a spectacular and stunningly sharp image! When closely inspected in DarkTable the back wing retains a lot of detail so I exported as openexr to be able to do some decent tonemapping in LuminanceHDR without losing quality. After that, I applied GMIC’s “Freaky Details” on a 50% transparent layer to bring out the feather detail and repositioned the bird with the “Liquid Rescale” plugin so it would have more area to “fly into” on the right. [EDIT]Added a highlight pass layer to brighten things up a bit…
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Some people correct this sort of things with layers often several to get various parts correct and then paint transparency to combine. Easier to do than some might think, I couldn’t get a 2nd image to correct all blacks especially the nearest wing.
Anyway loaded directly into the gimp and used a photogenics point and shoot curve to map from raw with tiny adjustments to remove all clipping. This one is the replacement for the white wedding curve 
that’s why I chose it - white needs to be good. 2 overlay layers at 25% transparency restored some of the black and may have flattened some of the whites a bit. Played further for better blacks elsewhere - couldn’t. Probably could make the whites better and then merge but left as is. Just reduced and sharpened a bit.
John
Amazing shot. Really liked how the mountain ridges in the backdrop lead to the bird in a harmonious way. Here is an attempt essentially using the Wavelet and the LAB tool of RawTherapee dev 5.4-409-g99caa76f7. Negative vignette was added to keep the uniform brightness and warm colors are used to emphasize the joyous feeling of flying freely!
_PIC6611.jpg.out.pp3 (11.1 KB)
ADDED:
_PIC6611BW.jpg.out.pp3 (11.1 KB)
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I like this one
@pittendrigh thanks for sharing the pelican with us. The natural colour palette is truly beautiful, complementary full. A lot of interesting POVs and executions. I like your own version, also @msd 's . @Mike_Bing 's lying bird ('cause of the nose, avoiding misunderstandings) gives much needed extra space - Lola’s a bit centered - good one!
Filmulator, already pretty nice IMO (that HL rescuing tool is needed)
gimp
the processing in gimp, all gmic but a curve << experimented blending a LCE layer in divide blending mode, plus an inverted in exclusion BM
cheers
PS
BTW I have the feeling the (dark) BKG theme in pixls is darker; anyone’s also experiencing that
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Thanks @martin.scharnke for confirming… it’s way too dark… for now I’ll be using my own tweak of TLV Night Mode extension for Brave Browser, the one on the right; on the left’s pixls’ dark mode and Safari.
Rawtherapee _PIC6611.NEF.pp3 (13.4 KB)
, film emulation (fuji reala 100) and grain in gimp and g’mic + crop
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This gliding pelican reminds me of the LAAT of Star Wars.
I was working so hard to preserve the detail of its rear end but then I pivoted to something entirely different.
1. PhotoFlow → HL mode (none) → lens corrections (all) → linear Rec2020 (no clipping) → 32f
2. gmic → crop (1.5:1) → sharpen (high freq contrast) → blends (HLG, retinex, negate) → adjust brightness, contrast (curves on face) → sketch via multiple steps → resize
Zoom 100% and enjoy!
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Nice