Depending on which way you are pulling things, tone curve (and rgb curve) can destroy local contrast. They are also not properly scene-referred, so you have no real control over highlights that are above the 0-1 range. If you know how to use it, tone eq is in almost all cases a better choice.
2 Likes
For my part I tried to obtain a steep curve in the upper 1 EV (where the white of the bird’s back is), with TE, but it was far from so steep as what a got from tone curve, where there arose some clear structure. And by picking out only this part of the image and using the structure in feathers thus obtained as a composite, I hoped to avoid any problems.
(But if this method really makes any difference from just adding the structure with a mask in the ordinary pixelpipe, I’m still uncertain about.)
I thought this would be a good one to try with Sigmoid, as it’s known for compressing highlight details. So I went with a highlight-skewed version of Sigmoid and then used Color Balance RGB to refine the overall contrast distribution. Then Local Contrast to bring out some more detail, although I’m not a fan of overly crispy pictures, so hopefully this still looks natural.
Darktable 5.0.1
R7_C1787_2.CR3.xmp (18.1 KB)
3 Likes
Cropped then Upscayled, blended in a reduced size of this texture since the feathers were blown out, and then enhanced the colors to my taste. 
1 Like
1 Like
R7_C1787_2.CR3.xmp (17.1 KB)
5 Likes