On a walk I found this dead tree, killed by a storm, with its interesting torsioned structure. Now back at home, i am struggling by emphasising these structures without overcooking the rest of the pic.
Looking forward, what you will do out of this.
_DSC4647.ARW (24,4 MB)
_DSC4647.jpg.out.pp3 (21,8 KB)
License: 
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Hope, you will have fun
Martin
Interesting image. My attempt DT4.4.2
Snapshot showing before (left) / after (right).
Doesn’t seem too different to yours.
I just got the entire image looking about the way I wanted, then added a long, skinny, oval mask on the tree trunk. Then I tried to bring out more detail in the tree with Color Balance RGB.
dt 4.4.2
Probably not the most realistic, but I tried to minimize the side effects. Either local contrast and / or texture boost could be dialed back on tree if desired.
ART 1.20.22
_DSC4647.ARW.arp (72.7 KB)
Tricky to separate the tree trunk from the background. I opted for an exposure of -1EV in Filmulator then in GIMP made slight adjustments with luminosity masking.
To all: thanks a lot for your thougts and suggestions.
@Roger.Wilco even you say, it doesn’t seem too different to my version, you managed a more beautiful blue sky
@dqpcoxeas this is a is very powerful edit
@Tim seems the oval mask is doing the trick
@lphilpot the structure is very clear and you managed a more realistic sky than i remember 
@david, i agree, the separation from background helps to make the structure more visible
@sean_liu youre right, the b/w version helps a lot to emphasise the tree
With all your hints and thoughts in mind i gave it a second try :
again: Thanks a lot to everybody!
Martin
Another play to separate the tree trunk from the background, in hindsight greatly overdone. But an opportunity to try other techniques.
That’s because I cheated. 
I manually skewed the sky color a little more blue and then pulled up the sat just a touch.
Such a total with a lot of contrast is tough. But this edit is my favorite.
