I finally started to learn Darktable and went straight to the scenic-referred workflow. For many pictures, I am able to get a result which I prefer over the jpg.
Here’s one case where I a actually prefer the look of the jpg, but I am unable to improve the coloring of the house and make the grass look greener. If I remember correctly, the house was actually quite close to the colors in the jpg.
I suggest first try the color balance rgb module, particularly the perceptual saturation sliders.
The colorfulness controls in color calibration are also useful.
Thanks for sharing the image. Here is my attempt. It literally was about a one minute edit for me.
Here are the steps I applied.
I have created a style that applies denoise (profiled), the demosaic AA filter sharpness preset found in diffuse or sharpen module, and the basic colorfullness preset of color balance rgb module. So, my first step was to apply this style.
Then knowing you wanted more vibrant color, I changed the selected preset for the color balance rgb module to basic colorfullness vibrant colors.
The exposure looked good as is, so I went straight to filmic and used the auto tune levels eyedropper to set the white and black relative exposure slider.
I then applied local contrast module at default settings.
I then gave extra sharpness by applying the sharpen module at default settings.
I was happy with the look of the image, but it is personal taste and maybe you would like to increase the contrast a bit using the contrast slider in filmic. Also if there was a specific color such as red or green that you would like to increase the saturation of this could be done using the color zones module.
Yes, the scene referred workflow produces dull colors if basic colorfullness is not added from the color balance rgb module. It is a critical module for all my images.
There is a module called velvia which some people would not recommend, but it adds a nice bit of punch to the color if you want to get colours similar to what camera JPGs often look like. It is a very simple module to use and learn. Others might suggest that this could be better done in the colour balance RGB module and I would not disagree, but the velvia module is easier to master.
One of the best modules for the tweaking the greens and the sky is the CLUT module… here are a couple of punchy ones I did quickly… different tweak on the green…
I just made the same recommendation before noticing your post. I agree. I think Velvia should be treated as an effect/filter, rightly applied well after most other processing, that just adds that little something that helps an image look good - and yes it is easy.
If you like that try the velvia emulation in the CLUT module. I think it has a much nicer effect in general although I rarely use it and prefer to custom tweak saturation and hues as needed.
I just tried it. It is not as subtle and it did strange things to clouds in a scene I tried it on. It also inserts itself before the Contrast Equaliser in the workflow. That’s too early in the process IMHO. I’ll play further…
You can easily move it…I likely also didn’t notice that as I have not used the contrast eq in a very long time… this order might distort things for sure…
EDIT on a couple of images the effect looks similar if you place it in the same place as velvia and use 50% opacity…at least for the greens… The simulation has a bit more contrasted effect…worth playing with and you can edit specific color patches as needed for your image…
In my standard processing, adding a basic colorfullness preset from the color balance RGB is usually essential to give a look that is pleasing to me. I have made a style that adds demosaicing sharpening from the diffuse or sharpen module, denoise (profiled), and basic colorfulness at the start of the image processing. If the picture has significant skin tones I then return to the color balance module and select the pre-set for skin tone. There is also a pre-set for vibrant which some people may prefer.
I appreciate that there are many ways of tackling colour and saturation in DT and that is what makes DT so good. I have not explored the CLUT module yet but I will have a look at it. I rarely would use the velvia module since I would now customise the color balance RGB module to suit my needs, but the Velvia module is easy to use and many people would be pleased with the result.
