I usually prefer to make my edits as generic as possible, meaning I try to avoid selective tone/color modification for my personal photo edits (so that I can replicate looks more easily across sets of images). However, for high dynamic range scenes, or for scenes where the subject is almost the darkest part of the image, things can get wacky.
I am used to using tone equalizer for scenes with harsh highlights/deep shadows to even things out before performing my regular processing, but for images with naturally very dark subjects, I am still learning as I go.
That’s where this image comes in. Here is the original with the initial default pipeline:
As you can see, the cow is the darkest part of the image.
So anyways I edited it, using the tone equalizer to help adjust things… and I am shocked at how natural and beautiful it worked!
Here is the “final” edit (final for now at least).
And here is a comparison with what the image would look like with and without tone eq.
Left = “without tone eq”, Right = “with tone eq”, both with the auto-picker for white/black relative exposure enabled in AgX.
Not only is this just better looking, and gives the subject better readability, but it is also far closer to the way things looked in real life.
I love darktable.