Processed in the SNS-HDR Pro.
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Hi @PebalX, welcome to our forum! We focus on free and open source software for photographers. I hadn’t heard of SNS-HDR pro before. Is it FOSS?
We really try and keep proprietary software out of our PlayRaws, since it is not easily obtainable by all members of our forum.
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It was mentioned on the forum a few times before. Looking at their website, they have are closed source and licensed as commercial freeware, non commercial or commercial products.
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For me, it looks like, that zbyma72age and pebalx are trying to do some commercial for that hdr-software…
Zbyma72age does use GIMP though. His workflow is explained here (I haven’t followed his link yet.): Snowy Waterfall at Noon - #22 by Zbyma72age.
Yes, in the second or third step, he is using gimp. And as far as I can understand, his tutorial for gimp, really seems to be worthy.
On the other side:
Starting the processing with a hdr preset, given by a commercial software, gimp could be just good enough to save the result as a jpg.
Well SNS-HDR Lite is freeware.
As I wrote before, I use it out of laziness.
I can open RAW files in GIMP using darktable.
In GIMP I very often use the Tone mapping operator Mantiuk2006 on the copy of the layer, which adds details to the photo, grain, and deprives the dull smoothness (a way to realistically brighten the shadows).
I still use the LAB mode why I gave it in my guide.
It is true that it is in Polish, but it is so richly illustrated that everyone can know what it is about.
Effortless denoise and sharpening in the L channel.
Possible wide color correction, which we will not get in any mode.
greetings
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Try to turn the thread back from all the over-the-top HDR look (meant tongue in cheek), back to the original ‘raw therapee’ look from the OT:
DSC08448.ARW.xmp (17.7 KB)
- white balance to camera reference (default scene-referred modern workflow)
- turn highlight reconstruction off, because nothing is clipped in the raw data
- raise the exposure till the overal train-tracks and all look sort of where you want them. Yes, the hightlights looked clipped-to-sh*t right now, but that’s filmic’s job.
- Color-calibration with pretty default settings (‘as shot in camera’) (scene-referred modern default), but raise the ‘gamut compression’ up high just to lazily combat it if it occurs
- enable filmic, go to the ‘look’ tab and raise up the ‘latitude’ to make sure it doesn’t desaturate shadows/highlights (too quickly)
- then, in filmic → go the scene tab and lower the ‘white’ till the orange glow has a look you a sort of OK with. If you leave it a bit higher, the middle of the orange-glow can have that white glow in it (which I actually like) but looking from your RawTherapee example you want it to be almost-completely-orange, so lower the filmic-whitepoint more till you’re OK with it.
- In the look tab, raise the saturation till it looks like how you want it.
Note that I have filmic at it’s default ‘RGB power’ mode this way.
Then, finishing touches:
- Unrelated to the tone-mapping, I add ‘defringe’ with default settings, add ‘sharpen’ with default settings and add ‘denoised profiled’.
- Denoising is set to ‘chroma’ blending mode, to only apply color-noise-reduction. I increase the strength a bit and lower the ‘preserve shadows’ till the blotches in the (deep) shadows are just about gone.
- I also set the demosaicing to VNG4 because I seem to prefer it in ‘busy / noisy’ shadows.
- Then I add a ‘local contrast’ with default settings, just because I almost always do it after filmic.
- Then, I add another instance of ‘local contrast’ but I use it for ‘my clarity trick’. I set it to ‘bilateral grid’ with a low contrast (4 as starting point) and then crank up the ‘detail’ slider till it’s overdone a bit. Turn on parametric-mask to select the highlights instead of shadows, so the effect is only active on the sky. Add a bit of mask feathering + blurring to prevent weird edges.
- Then lower the opacity of the whole ‘clarity local contrast’ module so that it just gives enough ‘push’ to the sun streaks, so they become more visible.
This sounds like a lot of steps, but don’t forget a lot of that comes as default in the modern workflow settings. I basically raised exposure, set filmic to high latitude and adjusted white-point to taste, tweaked saturation to taste and the image is basically there. The rest is ‘fixing up’ and ‘some sweetening on top’.
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I tried to get a fairly light look and also took some guidance from the version posted by aurelienpierre … totally unable however to match his rather softer style.
DSC08448.ARW.xmp (10.0 KB)
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@jorismak, thank you for the descriptive write-up. It’s helpful to see the “how and why” on top of the plain xmp file. 
I especially like the sun streak technique.
This is a fun image. First I did some development and balancing in RT, then I experimented with luminosity masks in GIMP and finally I came back to RT and tried to achieve my GIMP result in RT only. Not quite the same but I’m satisfied…
So… RT5.8
DSC08448-1.jpg.out.pp3 (13.2 KB)
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I tried to play again with this shot (filmic, local contrast, color balance)
darktable 3.4.1
Here’s my first play raw attempt.
I used dt 3.4.1 (WB+Exposure+ToneEQ+COlor Calibration+Color balance+local contrast)
DSC08448.ARW.xmp (11.3 KB)
Edit: I now realize my edit may be a bit too shy, as I see how my thumbnail looks … vs how other people’s do !
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Apologies - neither darktable or rawtherapee.
I decided that glorious sky should be the main feature for me. Filmulator (+1EV) then GIMP. I let the foreground remain in darkness apart from a slight emphasis on the highlights.
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Went for a moody ‘cinematic’ feel, and a very solid 5x4 crop in portrait mode.
Done with latest darktable git.
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