DSCF3221.RAF.xmp (16.3 KB)
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With these I just worked on the jpgs in gimp
Dehaze for the first one and levels auto input balance for the second
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What problems do you have with the sky? Sky in your version looks pretty good.
Exactly.
Here is my version. It’s similar to yours, with less contrast, softer textures and a little color grading to better separate green trees from orange-yellow ones:
DSCF1914.RAF.xmp (12,8 KB)
The second photo, in the given light, doesn’t make much sense to me. The road with trees as the main motif in the foreground are in deep shadow in contrast to the very strongly lit background. It would be much better the other way around.
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Thanks Steven! No I did not find these buttons before. Where is it explained in the manual?
At least I found now how to write $(WIDTH.SENSOR)x$(HEIGHT.SENSOR) in special topics → variables in order to see a pictures original size.
Best regards, Andreas
Here: darktable 4.2 user manual - history stack
(sorry, I’ve somehow ended up in the old 4.2 manual - it’s the same though).
Out of interest, how - or in what module - are you using the variables? Just curious - I might be missing out!
Thanks, it was a quick and dirty interpretation though, on your part you really nailed it, I mean fulfilled the request I think. You’re on a roll lately ! 
I loaded your sidecar file to take a look at how you tempered all these harsh small details / high frequency contrasts and added what I saw to my tool list ! thanks for the lesson, as always 
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Your version of sky is nearly perfect, but in mine, there is still a feeling of unnaturalness. In high dynamic range photos, I encounter quite a few issues like this. I noticed you started using sigmoid instead of filmic, perhaps due to primaries? Maybe sigmoid is the solution to my problem, but I really don’t like such a big transition in changing my workflow (which is probably also a significant issue in darktable, and the reason why most users will never adopt a program that changes so rapidly). In the second picture, I see the main motif on the left, but it’s not perfect, of course 
Here is my take on this image. You have this wonderful possibilities of tone and color in the trees. I think for this shot the focus on that is where to go. When I pulled up the raw I thought it looked like that background would have had a lot of atmospheric haze and so would be diffuse and not strongly saturated… So some version of the version by @s7habo I think is the way to go… This is just how I see the photo.
This thought comes up over and over for me and I am of course severely guilty of pushing pixels around because I can and maybe not because they should be…
As an example there are pictures where the sky is magnificent and the foreground is in strong shadow… This can be an amazing composition but often you will see edits with massive shadow lifting looking for details and often the details don’t support the image they create distraction…
I think defining a subject and crafting the edit to enhance and support that aspect of the image is often lost in our efforts as amateurs… (only calling myself this) but because we have a digital image that can be prodded and poked to death we will be tempted to do it and to edit every square cm of the image for the “perfect” tone color contrast whatever but with no though about the composition and the subject and how to enhance that…
I think recently someone shared a video of a photographer that purposely allowed large portions of their images to blow out for effect and to focus the viewer on his intended subject of which there could be many…
So long story short I think this sky doesn’t warrant too much in the way of heavy correction but it offers a really nice back drop to those brilliant colors as a hazy atmosphere filled background fading away in the haze…
Just some random thoughts…
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I like your crop 
Nevertheless I chose a different one.
Tried to emphasis this.
DSCF3221.RAF.xmp (15.3 KB)
And the first one didn’t need much thought…
DSCF1914.RAF.xmp (21.8 KB)
Here’s my version of the first one:
DSCF1914_02.RAF.xmp (24.1 KB)
In the second one I tried to emphasize the winding road among the trees, and decrease the influence of the brightly lit background:
DSCF3221.RAF.xmp (13.3 KB)
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You can use tone equalizer with a mask to increase the brightness in the sky
DSCF1914.RAF.xmp (25.7 KB)
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these are great!
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