First of all: I would never ask the community to limit the edits to, in this case, just darktable, this being Play Raw and all.
Let me clarify why I mentioned xmp-s: Those I can dissect myself and don’t necessarily need any further explanation. Edits made with FOSS other then darktable I cannot approach in this way. Hence my request to add some context if a non xmp version was presented. Waveluke’s contribution is a great example of this (Thanks!).
Those two quotes are absolutely correct. Post your edits!
In this case I asked for some feedback on how to improve my shot/edit, but I always enjoy or respect the edits that are contributed, no matter the quality, program(s) used or specific question that might be asked.
When you have a soft shot like this, it’s always a good idea donwsizing it a lot, so it looks much sharper. Not the same as a perfect shot, but at least you have a nice result.
I just had a look at your xmp and the way you used (a double set of) the contrast equalizer. It is exactly what I’ve seem to have been struggling with. I think the local contrast is a bit on the strong side, which is just personal taste, nothing more or less. I’d attenuate it to 225% and 0.350.
Very happy with your contrast equalizer settings, something to keep in mind. Thanks!
@Thomas_Do: You always surprise me with the modules you use to get really nice results. I would have left out the velvia module, but that, again, is a taste thing.
@paulmiller: Just beautiful! Too bad I cannot have a better look in your kitchen
You have got to love Play Raw and its participants…
I’m curious why you specifically mention this. Care to elaborate on that?
This lens goes all the way up to f/32 and I knew I would be rather close (40-45cm) to the subject and the DOF would thus be rather limited. Hence the f/20 setting. With hindsight I know I should have upped the ISO value and used f/22 (f/25?).
Using f/11 instead of f/20 would have roughly cut my DOF in halve, which was already in the lower centimetre range.
I did overestimate its VR capabilities and that is the main reason why this one isn’t as sharp as I wanted it to be. Valuable lesson learned
Been a bit busy with household stuff, but the challenges of this one caught my attention…
IMHO an image like this grabs attention with it’s clarity, and hand-holding the capture definitely challenges that. Made me want to do all manner of denoise and sharpen, but I backed out most of that for the final rendition. I abandoned the filmic curve and went with a control-point curve that let me twist it in non-parametric ways, looking for the contrast in the droplets. I added a bit of color saturation to make the yellow-ish background stand out from the high-key blue-ish foreground. From rawproc:
Flowers typically provide an abundance of symmetry with which to compose; this one challenges that notion. For an alternate take, I went crop-hunting, looking for lines to construct a composition; in the south-west quadrant I found this: