So … I quite like this capture. My preferred rendition is a bit Spinal Tap (up to 11), however for display on a monitor and never printed, I prefer the look to a much flatter treatment.
Suggested: emphasize the surfer, the kite, and the houses your way (what’s my way?)
2024-04-06_17-09-46.72_DSC6190.nef (22.5 MB)
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okay i give up. where is this? worser bay? lyall bay on a day with a light southerly?
Great shot. 
I liked the foreground, so used a graduated mask and an instance of exposure to balance the brightness a bit.
My saturation is higher than yours. 
2024-04-06_17-09-46.72_DSC6190(1).nef.xmp (11.9 KB)
I have tried to follow your suggestion. Tricky but great fun!
I may make many more attempts at this.
Second try. Still a more or less the same crop but all in all more punchy:
@martin.scharnke , did you use some sort of tilt-shift photography here? The vanishing lines that I can draw from the buildings almost seem to show an inverted perspective.
Here is my version (daktable + custom film sim).
Portra400 + Ektarcolor RA4 print
Puts me in mind of Contrast-Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). Got this with one click:
For those in the know: block size 63; histogram 128; max slope 5.0. No other adjustments …
My try with dt 4.6.1. I didn’t crop, because I like the white surf in the foreground.
In GIMP there is Stress (GIMP>Colors>Tone Mapping>Stress). The only disadvantage is that you have to be patient. Even with a fast computer. The filter gives the best result with an image with the highest precision. (GIMP>Image>Precision).
The CLAHE filter is available in Siril.
@snibgo has an implementation of CLAHE and other neat tricks on his site, though it is primarily Windows batch/CMD oriented scripting.
BTW, I am appreciating the flatter renditions.
After I wrote my CLAHE page, a -clahe option was added to ImageMagick, so that is available on all platforms.
FWIW, mine was done by a plugin in ‘ImageJ’ now a.k.a ‘Fiji’.
