So many ways to develop this picture . . .

Processing Play Raw
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#1

We were up in the Chilean Andes last week, in the Atacama desert between San Pedro and the Argentine border at about 4500m. The scenery absolutely justifies that overused word ‘majestic’. In almost every direction we were looking at snow capped volcanoes under a blue sky with enormous fluffy clouds. In this image we also have flamingos on the lake, and vicunas peacefully grazing on the Altiplano.

What’s not to like??

Well for starters, I just can’t seem to get the best out of this photo. I love the detail in the clouds and on the snow, and the colours, and and . . . . So each attempt to process with DT has ended up just too cluttered.

I take on board everything people say about composition as opposed to sharpening and saturating everything, so lets see what everyone can bring out in this photo.

ER6_2609
ER6_26093000×2000 1.01 MB

ER6_2609.CR3 (22.7 MB)
This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike

12 Likes
#2

chilean.andes.atacama.dtdev
chilean.andes.atacama.dtdev2560×1707 1.34 MB

chilean.andes.atacama.cr3.xmp (14.8 KB) darktable 3.9 Development

8 Likes
#3

Very nice shot, thanks for sharing!

I went for a panoramic format to emphasize the flamingos :grin:

dt 3.8

ER6_2609
ER6_26092500×1109 379 KB

ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (14.7 KB)

2 Likes
#4

ER6_2609
ER6_26094468×2848 9.42 MB

ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (18.3 KB)

Nice picture! Fun to edit, difficult to crop.

2 Likes
#5

ER6_2609-1
ER6_2609-14000×2669 2.76 MB

ER6_2609-1.jpg.out.pp3 (14,3 KB)

4 Likes
#6

ER6_2609-1_crop
ER6_2609-1_crop2194×2669 1.95 MB

I’ve tried an other crop to give more focus to the flamingos.

1 Like
#7

Great shot! I would edit it like this.

ER6_2609
ER6_26092048×1366 1.08 MB

darktable 3.8: ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (23.1 KB)

#8

Great image! I think it’s difficult to put the focus on the bird, the water and the mountain view. So I went for two edits.

ER6_2609
ER6_26091920×810 1.01 MB

ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (10.0 KB)

ER6_2609_01
ER6_2609_011920×1920 2.24 MB

ER6_2609_01.CR3.xmp (12.3 KB)

3 Likes
#9

Yes indeed where to put the focus.

In the real world, the human eye looks around the scene, then the brain does image processing. So you can take in the entire scene, without realising you are mentally stitching together several different ‘takes’ across varied lighting, distance etc.

Almost impossible to do the same to a single camera image, but what I like about this shot is the natural lines in the image which guide the eye to the different areas of interest. So when I have seen enough people work on the image, I plan to take the ideas and reprocess in DT with multiple settings for these different areas of focus.

Maybe this will produce something good.

#10

I think this image could work much better if it is printed then on a screen.

#11

Hi @Aliks,
this image is quite impressive, I like it a lot :blush:
I removed the foreground with the first row of flamingos to focus the image more on the mountain.
(and more color and contrast :smiley: )

DT3.9

ER6_2609
ER6_26094864×3243 5.77 MB

ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (57.9 KB)

3 Likes
#12

very beautiful landscape … my dt version consists mostly of color balance rgb and color calibration adjustments - big fan of boris hajdukovic tutorial.

ER6_2609
ER6_26095471×3647 7.13 MB

3 Likes
#13

ER6_2609
ER6_26096078×2431 3.69 MB

#14

Jonas - this version wins the prize - so good it takes me back there - gasping for oxygen at 5,000m but admiring all the lovely colour.

I especially like the balance of colour and detail between clouds, volcano, desert and lake!

2 Likes
#15

many thanks for the kind words - beautiful scenery … it must have been amazing to experience

1 Like
#16

ER6_2609.CR3.xmp (16.0 KB)

ER6_2609
ER6_26091920×1280 925 KB

2 Likes
#17

ER6_2609.CR3.arp (11.5 KB)

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ER6_26092048×1367 666 KB

1 Like
#18

Unfortunaly I could not open the Raw with rawTherapee. Just gave me a blank screen.
So I download as a jpeg and did 3 edits usinf Gimp. Similar but different crops

b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851birds white balance
b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851birds white balance1208×324 219 KB
This is the only one I didn’t do equalize local histograms on - just white balance. And if I sharpened any (it didn’t need it actually) I used sharpen gradient as it is a softer sharpening I think.
b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851centre crop
b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851centre crop874×1636 509 KB

I was interested to know what that mark in the sand was. In fact it drew me almost straight away.
b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851some birds, mountain sky elh md sg
b0663c018c6cd87b26ccb41b8a6c7b38057c7851some birds, mountain sky elh md sg1552×1950 1000 KB

Here you have a bit of everything.

#19

RawTherapee has, very basic, support for this camera/cr3 format and it can open it:

rt.5.8.development
rt.5.8.development2048×1152 2.15 MB

You do need a recent development version, though, the “old” stable will not do. Have a look here if you’re interested:

#21

If you downloaded from here: RawTherapee you are using the old one.

You should see something like this in the top left corner (look at my screen shot): RawTherapee 5.8-3075-g5502f52f9 instead of RawTherapee 5.8. The extra string signifies a development build.