Many thanks to all who participated! Interesting what you can do with this raw. From a “dramatic” sky like in @yteaot and @shreedhar 1 to the scary version @shreedhar 2, I also like the light and the crop of @msd (1).
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@Thomas_Do thanks for providing raw and context 
and pips sharing their versions, @shreedhar if that B&W was a generous naked woman would be close to man ray’s 
Weather seems moody yes, my goal was to try to preserve that moodiness with a touch of happy colours on the boat… that somehow reminded me knife in the water
RT got me here
20170809_0119_RT.tif.out.zip (3.9 KB)
Then to gimp and gmic, DR increase (split in dark and lights {which was blended in soft light mode and 33% if I recall correctly}), my own LUT (for personal ref BSC-HC-01) with 100% luma weight and half of its colour (was coming in too strong, je je), still had to add a curve to fix bluish shadows. =)
Cheers and a good week for all
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LuminanceHDR output of Ferradans (lower half) and Mantiuk 06 (angry looking sky), masked with gradient in McGIMP and finally colors boost in RawTherapee.
very subjective, but
pros - good dynamic range compression
cons - over sharpened (mostly seen in the water and clouds), a bit flat
Thanks again …
I guess I used Tone mapping too much. I don’t care too much about the water , but I’m not too happy with the clouds.
How do I fix the flat image ?
I am actually fine with the clouds. Usually, I would steer clear of sharpening the water, esp. when it is choppy or has a repeating pattern. Very distracting.
Add contrast. You can use the curves tool in the exposure module.
I’d agree the image is excessively tone mapped, I’d back off that setting a bit.
Just using RT
A bit soft so crisped up in various ways. Resize and final sharpen done in Fotoxx. I like to see the whole reduced shot when I do that.
20170809_0119.CR2.pp3 (9.9 KB)
While in Fotoxx I did a B&W version. Just straight desaturate and steep curve contrast increase plus brightness. Same could be done in RT.
John
@DxO-user I liked that. Could you upload also the sidecar file?
EDIT: There are only three minor issues (again, to my taste), but I’d like to see your settings first.
I’d try to get rid of that blown spot in the clouds.
I first increased highlight compression, but then noticed it affected the overall contrast of the image. I was able to restrain its effect only to the clouds by increasing also the highlight compression threshold. This way, this change had minimal impact on the overall tonality and it eliminated the blown area in the cloud.
Another thing is the dark regions of the bow, that I find a little blotchy (I don’t know how to describe exactly… I think this is not the right word for it…)
I reduced that effect with a second tone curve by lowering the shadows and raising the highlights to restrain the effect, but I guess this had a noticeable impact to the overall contrast, which wasn’t what I had planed at first.
I’m not used to RT and I miss the history showing your steps, to try to find where you first introduced that effect I’m trying to get rid of.
EDIT: Here’s the pp3 with these two tweakings: 20170809_0119.CR2.pp3 (11.2 KB)
Thanks , I will have a look at it.
Another thing is the water , I want a more bluish color. It’s difficult in RT since almost all adjustment is globally , and local lab is way too limited. Since I don’t use darktable or Gimp , I have to resort to Affinity or Aurora to do that…
See if this video helps: Introducing a new color balance mode in darktable - #68 by agriggio (Please disregard the title, the video I’m referring to is RT)
I found it very powerful