Soft Dreamy Effect?

Software RawTherapee
1

Hey guys, started using RT a few days now and a lot I need to take in, especially the masking tools.

Okay, is there a way to create soft dreamy effect?

In lightroom, I make a mask that targets only the brightest part of the image and lower the texture, clarity, may be dehaze. But I don’t know how to do it in RT. Struggling a lot with the masking now :frowning:

2

I’ve not worked consistently in Raw Therapee for a bit but Google “Orton effect”. I think that’s the effect you’re looking for. Just a matter of applying the technique to RT.

3 Likes
3

I don’t know about RT, but in Gimp you could use the “Softglow” filter.

https://docs.gimp.org/3.0/en/gimp-filter-softglow.html

grafik
grafik918×896 234 KB

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4

Thanks mate, appreciate it!

5

Yeah this is probably it. And I’m trying to find a way in RT. Thanks for your suggestion.

6

Agreed … well worth a shot.

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7

@jdc is the expert on this, but as far as I know, there is no simple way to get this effect in RT.

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8

I don’t know about RT, but in ART, which is a fork of RT, you can use the various Smoothing, Local Contrast, and Texture Boost/Sharpening modules to create the blurred effect, then use a parametric mask to only apply the effect to the highlights. You can also adjust opacity, etc.

Without parametric masks, you can use the “Glow” mode in the Smoothing module to produce the effect you want.

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9

Darktable offers a bloom effect in the diffuse or sharpen module. I wonder if RT has a similar option.

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10

Hey guys, I think I kinda get it. Using Local Adjustments.

I added Blur/Grain & Denoise and increase the lightness of the highlights only. After that, I added Blur to those area. I think I’m getting close, not how I want it to be but very close.
I believe I can do similarly in Dehaze & Retinex.

Here are the photos:

  1. Unedited

    Unedited
    Unedited6016×4016 4.65 MB

  2. Edited

Edited
Edited6016×4016 3.87 MB

11

Orton by GIMP layers:
gaussian blur + USM + Laplace Edge Detection + original, waggle opacity sliders to taste:

Orton by layers
Orton by layers1380×920 701 KB

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12

Yep, very similar to what I’m looking for!

13

@pu.photograph

Thank you @chaimav , to cite me as a reference.
I don’t know what “soft dreamy effect” means… Maybe it’s a term for another software.

Depending on what you’re looking for, you can accentuate local contrast, clarity, texture, or blur…
There are the “main” tools (which don’t implement Selective Editing), but they have the drawback of being global. And then there’s “Selective Editing,” with numerous tools that can create a differentiated effect.

In no particular order depending on what you are looking for, with or without excluding spot, with or without “Recovery based on luminance mask”, etc.

  • dehaze & Retinex
  • Blur/grain denoise
  • local contrast & wavelets - specially wavelets : clarity, local contrast, edge sharpness, etc.
  • Tone mapping
  • Sharpening (I am working on this PR which allows to differentiate the action on structures and flat areas: Capture deconvolution, blur, etc.)
    Denoise Blur Sharpening
  • Contrast by detail levels
  • Soft Light & Original Retinex

Of course, you can use all methods of Selective Editing, use multiple spots in Full-image, Normal, global, excluding mode

Excuse my bad english, and not to provide “the” answer, because there are many solutions depending on what you want to do and depending on the image

Jacques

14

Thanks for your info mate. I actually figured out on my replies above!
The Soft Dreamy Effect I referred to was the soft glow effect on a black mist filter.

15

Try posting a PlayRaw and asking people to provide RawTherapee sidecars.

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16

I’ve used this technique a couple of times with GIMP; Inspired by Mist: Crafting a Painterly Look with Open-Source Tools – Open Source Photography