last week I made a lot of sunset pictures and now I’m playing with them. I find quite interesting how different sunset colors are comparing the OOC JPEG with the developed RAW in darktable (Yellow/orange vs kakhi/salmon). This issue was already mentioned here: Problem with sunset colours
As I mentioned in another thread, the colors I get using darktable are in my opinion closer to reality than the OOC JPEG colors.
What do you like more independent of how were the real colors?
After checking my edits again, I do not see much color difference between OOC JPEG and dt. The difference is more notable in this image: Problem with halos
Nice image; I like the textures in the clouds. Exposed like the one I posted in the highlight reconstruction thread, but I decided to not give it the two-curve log treatment. In rawproc, filmic blew the sun out of the water, so to speak, so I went to the doublelogistic curve, which has a steeper slope to saturation:
I used just a touch of HSL saturation, and I cropped a bit to give the sun more image area.
Edit: Remembered after-the-fact I had a gamut-compressed LUT profile for your camera, so I re-processed with it, and deleted the saturation tool. Image posted above is updated…
I wanted to keep the highlights from being blown even more, and also to lift the sand to give it a little more prominence, all the while preserving the color of the clouds and also the mood of the photo. I feel I lost some cloud texture, particularly when I took out some of the noise my fiddling introduced. I wanted to get the sand colour a bit more sandy. DSC09733.ARW.xmp (10.7 KB)
Not an entirely successful attempt.
my views are subjective of course, but I think that you’ve lifted the sand - it now has more colour than before and looks a lot better than in my attempt, and the sun-in-the-clouds looks better to my eye, though the drama has been lessened a little. The clouds along the top of the image look to have retained their brooding aspect.
As to whether your second attempt is “better”, I think that’s a judgement for you to make alone. That said I prefer #2.
Thank you for your comment Michael, I also prefer #2: I’m glad I’ve been able to take on board your intentions and make them mine.
Regarding the drama you have a point. I tried to emphasize the sky but then settled for a natural look and feel: it was to easy to go overboard.
thanks for the kind words. I’m glad I was able to help. I’m no DT expert, but if you ever think I can help, always feel free to ask.
I was thinking well benefit if a parametric mask was used. If you’re a bit unsure about masks in DT, Bruce Williams (also an Australian) has a YT channel and he has done (from memory) at least 4 clips on masks in DT.
I don’t think I got the most out of the image with the gradients I applied - one for the sand and one for the sky. I think the sky is the leading element in the scene, and it needs the sun’s reflection on the water too.
