I shot this one this morning during some rain showers and I cannot seem to get it the way I want to.
It’s either too sharp, which makes it unnatural looking or too dark and a lot of the detail disappears. I don’t mind it being softer looking, but that also seems to soften the raindrops.
I know that the shot isn’t perfect, but thought it to be a nice exercise, which turns out to become a bit frustrating (still having fun though).
Anybody wants to have a go at this one and, if no darktable xmp is provided, tell what your secret ingredient is?
A lack of sharpness has lots to do with the lack of focus on the front of the subject, where the most area of subject is, and also, there is some camera shake/ motion blur. 1/50th of a second is kind of slow for 105mm. Given the relatively high iso, it looks like you either need to shoot this on a tripod, or add more light, or use flash. Nonetheless, I went for a high key look with modest sharpening and wavelet contrast enhancement as well as a warmer white balance to get a smoother buttery golden look. Edited in Rawtherapee, so the sidechain file is a .pp3, not an .xmp file.
Just go ahead and post Rawtherapee edits if you feel like it, so your knowledge and editing ideas could be useful to onlookers who prefer Rawtherapee, as the audience is greater than just OP.
That was my reasoning in brazenly posting a Rawtherapee edit.
raindrops.on.flower_01.nef.xmp (8.8 KB)
Difficult! The droplets on the bottom start to look like swiss cheese compared to the ones up top. I tried to even them out but not terribly well. Still fun though!
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!
