Trying to beat Luminar 4 result for an astro pic

Software darktable
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Ooops… :smile: I think it comes down to careful tone equalizer adjustments to get the shadows up (I used 2 instances for more control), lots of sigmoid contrast, and hardest to explain but maybe most important, a lot of adjustments in the color calibration channel mixer, including the relative colorfullness and brightness tabs.

I did notice that my version pushed some stars out of gamut (or something) and there’s a few sharp blue bits when you zoom in. Not quite sure how to deal with that.

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I posted the “ethics in night photography” article on purpose!

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Sorry, added now!

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@Sean_Liu : I didn’t put the XMP here as I’m using the master branch.

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Understood. One of those days I might summon my courage and try to compile it on my windows machine :rofl:

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You can get a nightly build for windows on GitHub, I’ve used these. On my phone, now won’t find the link but it’s there somewhere :slightly_smiling_face:

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The link is here: Release Darktable nightly build 20230928 · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub

Use at your own risk, so be sure to backup your DB and you must know that going back is not possible expect to restore the DB from previous version.

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Hello,

Here’s my proposal, I tried to highlight the “warm” late-evening light with the superb new “RGB Primaries” module.

2023-09-21-DSC06267_LR
2023-09-21-DSC06267_LR1000×1500 827 KB

Darktable Master 4.5.0+773
DSC06267.ARW.xmp (23.4 KB)
Greetings from Brussels,
Christian

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DSC06267.ARW.xmp (14.8 KB)

DSC06267
DSC062671365×2048 1.4 MB

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DSC06267_02
DSC06267_024939×7742 5.71 MB

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Many thanks to everyone for spending your time editing and sharing your edits. I am pretty sure I picked up a few things here and there :slight_smile:
I easily got confused with so many modules and many of the “legacy” ways of doing things, such as where to apply white balance and mix colors.
Did another edit with some arbitrary guidelines in mind:

  1. Trying stick with more “modern” modules
  2. Try to do things in “modern” ways. I did use low pass module which is not recommended by the manual.
  3. Try to minimize use of masks. After all I used zero mask in Luminar.
  4. Try not to use GPU intense modules, such as diffuse or sharpen, as I only have a laptop with 8th gen i7 with integrated graphics. Not terribly slow but not a fan for waiting for too long.
  5. Try to preserve lighting in trees as I don’t like them to be a black blob.

Still took way longer than Luminar but I suppose it’s the price to pay for driving a manual car.
Here’s what I came up with, hopefully made some progress, still long way to go I suppose.

DSC06267.small_02
DSC06267.small_021304×2000 1.23 MB

DSC06267.ARW.xmp (15.9 KB)

3 Likes
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You can certainly take this one in a few directions… and personal preference will influence it… for example I often like the silhouette look when featuring a sky. Then you have no distractions in the composition… Personally I would just love to be in a boat looking up at that sky and doing some night fishing … :slight_smile:

DSC06267
DSC062671920×2451 537 KB

DSC06267_01
DSC06267_011920×2451 625 KB

DSC06267_02
DSC06267_021920×2451 780 KB

Perceptual rendering of this last one gives a bit more in the shadows… and lightens the sky

DSC06267_03
DSC06267_031920×2451 812 KB

I was just messing around so not sure I even kept the xmp but you can load the jpg as a sidecar if need be…

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My not-so-successful attempt

DSC06267_01
DSC06267_015320×7980 18.2 MB

DSC06267_01.ARW.xmp (23,0 Ko)

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My Version:

DSC06267
DSC062675320×7980 19.6 MB

DSC06267.ARW.xmp (19.3 KB)

2 Likes