First post here, as I was directed to this forum from the Darktable (unofficial) FB group.
I picked a particularly bad photo of mine which I shot on the island of St. John a few years ago. The scene at the time was of the sun breaking through a wonderful storm cloud formation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the image was underexposed and the sun spot itself slightly over-exposed. My intent was to learn how to use parametric+drawn maps in darktable.
I seem to have made a horrible picture slightly better, but wanted to get some ideas on what else I could do, which modules to use, and perhaps gain a better understanding of the theory behind why one chooses specific modules or methods.
Attached are the original, a JPEG of my attempt, and the sidecar file.
Here is a very quick edit using mainly using exposure to raise the shadows and set middle gray, tone eq to lower the highlights, filmic to compress the dynamic range and a smudge of local contrast for … local contrast.
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I haven’t tried to lift the shadows in the trees too much (I don’t like the hdr look and prefer a more natural look). I like to keep parts of the forest in the dark and then just naturally let the brightest parts come alive.
In summary here’s what I did:
exposure +2EV and filmic rgb with reconstruct options to fill in the sun.
Thanks for sharing the shot. Here is my try. I tried to separate the two trees in the foreground from the forest. I also wanted to bring up the sky texture. I pumped up the colors quite a bit which is certainly a matter of taste. Additionally I gave the forest a warmer color.
@aadm, thanks! I absolutely love what you’ve done with the sky! It’s very much how I remember the scene in my mind. The forest may have been a little lighter, but the sky is definitely the focus of this photo!
And thank you for explaining how you did it. I find explanations easier to understand than looking at the side-car files, which I haven’t learned how to use well yet.
@age - Wow. Just wow! What a gorgeous sky! I love how to brought the highlights out in the forest but left enough shadow so that the sky remains the focus!
