@Mario_Saraceni thanks mr 4 the lovely misty path and everybody sharing their own =)
This must be my most frustrating playraw ever, I managed a nice version on photoflow and even split in 2 could not export. Then also managed a pretty good one in rawtherapee and the program crashed on me, when saving… very frustrating.
Just ‘casue I’m stubborn went to darktable, got this kinda LOGish somethin’
and so to Gimpgmic to apply a curve, the slightlyest sharpness and a Kodak Vision3 500T LUT 
@Mario_Saraceni Nicely composed shot. I added the play_raw tag for you BTW.
@HIRAM Wow, I don’t think I would be able to do any better.
@chroma_ghost Such a persistent ghost. Good result. Prefer a brighter foreground.
Hope someone gets around to fixing the specks in the middle- and bottom-left 
.
@afre @Mario_Saraceni thanks for the feedback! What I like about this shot is the multiple golden section sense of the layers and the s-curve: very photogenic data.
DSC_0539.NEF.xmp (18.0 KB)
I wanted to focus on the layers of earth, the depth, the sharp gradation of color. Darktable with some split toning and curves.
Honestly this image is just great as it is, thanks for sharing.
As it is great out of camera (I would totally leave it as it is), I tried to come up with something creative…
…so I desaturated the greens to put them more into the mist and highlighted (by saturation and detail) the path and its lighter green side on the right.
Done in RT+Gimp
I’ll send Igor wth some candles, cheers mate 
@chroma_ghost, that must have been so frustrating!! But your final result is lovely - thank you!
Thanks for adding the play_raw tag to my post, @afre
Very nice crop, @paperdigits. Perhaps the path could even be cut out completely?
Creative effect, @yteaot. I’ll start experimenting with the “color lookup table” module in DT.
Thank you for your compliments, @McCap. I like the careful balance in your version.
Your version is almost surreal, @Wocket - nice!
And the sky in @shreedhar’s version is probably the one I like the best.
Thank you all, again.
Destressing again. Not entirely happy with the result. Let me know what you like and don’t like so that I can improve next time.
dcraw
a) Output linear 16-bit TIF.
gmic
a) Lightness: increase regional contrast + reduce noise.
b) Chroma: stretch contrast.
c) Redistribute pixel values, favoring shadows.
d) Sharpen by tone mapping.
e) Reduce noise (maybe before step d next time?).
GIMP
a) Spot heal blotches at center-left and bottom-left.
gmic
a) Preparation for your viewing pleasure.
Thought I’d try something different. I used Fotoxx to open the raw and stayed in it rather than switching to RT. Produced 2 images. On one I clarified the mist as much as I could to bring out detail with Fotoxx tools. The other I just adjusted for a sort of nice look not worrying about mist detail. Then the gimp with images as layers. Blended in the detail shot in normal mode with the opacity slider. Looked a bit flat so new from visible duplicate and softlight at about 50% opacity. Maybe too much. I noticed that the lower part had a darker area that didn’t blend in well so back to Fotoxx and a none linear gradient. Final resize and slight sharpen.
Only thing is that if I look at it in an hour or so I might decide I need to change it and go through the lot again. Often happens with me but I’ll leave it in this case.
Oh forgot to mention I messed with the high end of the red channel to avoid clipping when contrast was pushed up via a simple curve. Suppose I could also have played with the sky colour.
Edit I feel I should have cropped some of the foreground out. 
The darkness of that doesn’t fit in well with a web site that uses a white foreground but I decided to “forget” that. It can only be viewed in a lightbox type display really.
John
@Mario_Saraceni very nice picture, thank you for sharing and letting us play with it!!!
Here are two versions of mine, both edited with photoflow, one in colors and one grayscale.
In both cases I have basically used several instances of contrast, saturation, brightness and curves adjustments, masked with horizontal gradients to protect the areas I didn’t want to modify:
In both cases, I have tried to emphasize the curvy shape of the road in the foreground.
The .PFI file for the grayscale version is here: DSC_0539.pfi (68.1 KB)
The color version can be obtained by simply disabling the second layer group…
I’m curious to see what you all think of those two edits!
@paperdigits Nice crop. It works and I actually don’t mind the path being there.
@Carmelo_DrRaw Wow, nicely done. The results remind me of technicolor and B&W film. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned that I preferred a brighter foreground and I think you have done it well. Makes me a hypocrite because I didn’t do that with my own attempt 
. I will probably give it another go.
Darktable and GIMP.
Darktable: DSC_0539.NEF.xmp (8,8 KB)
GIMP: enhanced contrast and applied sharpening with highpass filter.
It looks like Hungarain Flag now 
Looking forward to your new edit!
Meanwhile, here comes a second version of mine, with a better tonal balance in the foreground, and grainy versions of the B&W edit:
B&W
B&W small grain
B&W medium grain
PFI file: DSC_0539-2.pfi (81.2 KB)
The tool I used to generate the grainy versions is briefly introduced here. It is not open-sourced yet, but I plan to put the code on github in the near future.
@chroma_ghost could you share the .PFI file that could not be exported? I have edited the above images with version 0.2.8 and had no issues at all. However I have only used few tools (basic adjustments, curves and gradients). Maybe there is some specific tool that is causing troubles…
Sure thing Dr. Cool! It might have been slightly different values for the RAW developer module, but negligible overall
DSC_0539.zip (3.3 KB)
Thank you kindly for looking into it 
PS
I like the small grain B&W version =)
@afre 
smokeee in the watttter an fire in the skyyyy 
I love all the latest versions of the “misty path” image. If I really have to pick a favourite, I’d probably say @Carmelo_DrRaw’s second colour is hard to beat.
The tricolour effect (Hungarian flag? Or Indian flag?) is clearly a dominant theme, and I really like how it has been a) emphasised, b) de-emphasised, or c) just smashed to pieces in a couple of the interpretations.
Thank you again!
I’m really glad you like it!!! I think this is a very good example of how powerful masks-based local editing can be with certain images…
