@msd: thanks, now it works. Was curious how you did get that nice contrast and colors and found it in the black level correction within the exposure module.
@iarga:
To denoise I have the following process
a) Denoising
- Zoom in to 100% and search for an area with noise and with details.
- Create a snapshot for before/after comparison
- Now I search for the ‘best’ denoising setting, where ‘best’ means: Denoising reduces microcontrasts and therefore reduces details and sharpness. Therefore I search for the best-looking compromise between noise reduction and loosing details ans sharpness.
You can see this in these videos:
b) Sharpening
After that I sharpen the image. Sharpening increases microcontrasts and therefore increases noise. If I see noise coming up again I do another round with the denoising module.
Notes:
- In one video I use 200% zoom and different denoising methods. This was long time ago.
- Second video has got subtitles with explanations
- You can get RAW and XMP from the videos here: http://prugo.de/photography/videos
Meanwhile I found the best combination of denoising and sharpening for my camera. When I shoot with ISO 100 (which most of my shots are) I can denoise with just two clicks.
Only reason for not using automated presets darktable is that I want faster processing times and denoising is one of the last parts in my workflow.
This particular image was shot with ISO 1600 (when I remember correctly) and could have spent much more time with denoising. Maybe more denoising with a mask excluding bee and the blossom it’s standing on, but I only wanted a preview image for PlayRaw.