And I still fail to get a great photo! 
What would you do with this image? Have fun and go nuts!
I am attaching the OOC jpg (neutral profile iirc)
EDIT: I did not pay attention to the file size of the OOC jpg. I have scaled it down to the requested dimensions ← please see this post when posting. Mea Culpa!!
This file is licensed BY-NC-SA
_DSC4387.ARW (23.7 MB)
I’m afraid it is a great photo already… 
It’s my excuse for thinking ‘I cannot improve, only make worse’…
Regards Jetze
…Will try though…
If that is a rule, then I need to delete a number of my play raw “plays”! I look forward to what you come up with!
Lovely image, thanks! Darktable 5.3 with AgX.
I could do similar with sigmoid and RGB primaries in 5.2.
If think it’s an unfortunate case of “so close, yet so far” ; you have really nice atmosphere and leading lines to the right third, but then there’s not subject there. The birds are just at the wrong place (bad birds!)
Quick and dirty edit in krita :
I respectfully disagree; I think it is a great photograph. I tried to retain the early morning look.
No that’s not the rule… happily… but my rule is that when I don’t know what to do a) do nothing or b) wildly - for my doing - experiment. I lack fantasy of what this photo may be…
I don’t understand this obsession with a particular “subject”. Can’t the whole photo be the subject itself?
The issue is not a lack of subject, the subject is very clear (nice landcape & birds), the issue is that the leading lines are not leading to one of the strong element of the image. With the birds on the left the image is also unbalanced imo (left is too strong).
Rules can be broken, what matters is you like the image or not. I love the atmosphere in this one.
I have not much to complain on this shot…
or in other words I find it really beautiful. I don’t miss a subject. For me it is the mist.
This is why I am not a bird person…they never do what I tell them!
Your diagnosis is spot on, and the repositioning of the geese really does polish the image!
I do not recall seeing many Krita edits here. Its very cool to see some of the less photocentric (?) apps being used! Thanks!
To be clear I first edited it with RT, I just moved the birds with Krita.
I like this photo. To me, the birds form a leading line heading toward the vanishing point, which draws the eye to the river and mist. But what do I know? 
While I made a number of little tweaks to the photo, the main improvement came from changing the color balance to “daylight” and adjusting from there.
_DSC4387.ARW.xmp (14.6 KB)
I think my default (and many others) is to use dehaze, but adding haze/mist is also cool because it provides a totally different vibe! Thanks for reminding me to think outside the box!
For those of us who are GIMP novices, what is USM?
