Picture a misty morn, lakeside, soft light, ethereal. Thinking Monets Garden.
Now consider the amount of faff to pull the above from the source file (stands at 40+ items in the history stack - DT3.0)
Do you still consider it an Impressionistic masterpiece?
Or call it an overly cropped hot mess of noisy pixelated blagh?
Was it worth the effort?
Spontaneously: no! 
However — IMHO, you could oompf up some highlights in the starting image
to arrive at … … something else?
Addendum: You are not far off :-))
Claude Monet - Wikipedia
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
Every picture tells a story - 'sup to you which one
“Do you still consider it an Impressionistic masterpiece?”
IMO, no.
“Or call it an overly cropped hot mess of noisy pixelated blagh?”
No, again. But why does it need to go to such extreme opposites?
“Was it worth the effort?”
Since the effort was yours, only you can answer that, IMO.
To paraphrase from on old Monty Python skit, “I may not know a lot about art, but I know what I like!”
The colour and atmosphere is exceptional, unfortunately let down by the “hot mess of noisy pixelated blagh.” If you could smooth that out, or add some grain or digital brush strokes (gmic style transfer?) to disguise it, you would have something very nice indeed. It looks great at thumbnail size on my phone, where you can’t see the pixelation.
No, no, and only you can answer question #3.
It’s noisy and pixelated, but somehow quite appealing, especially if you can ignore for a moment the fact that it’s a photo. The original photo you pulled it from appears to be quite underexposed; you would have had less noise to fight if you had exposed more.
Yep, all good points. As an exercise in what can be done it was pretty interesting and passed a few hours. Printed it out in a 6x4 inch with a big border and slapped it in a gaudy frame - doesn’t look half bad (the other half, well…)
Any takers for a worst before and best after show and tell?
Any takers for a worst before and best after show and tell?
No
But what if you give it a thin layer of yellow-ish varnish?
That might just make the image a hundred years older…
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
So give it a thin layer of yellow-ish varnish? Hows that work then? ColCal? ColBalRGB? or a trip down the local hardware store?
Grumpf :-)))
Either in The Gimp, or in darktable’s
color balance/hue|saturation
Thank You!!!
Me, I’m stuck between a steaming pile of poo and something quite appealing
