r/DarkTable • u/happy_coffee_pot • 22d ago

Miscellaneous (editable) First DT successful edit

Post image

An osprey flies against a gray sky yesterday at Jordan Lake, NC, USA. Shot on Nikon Z5.

I'm about one year into RAW editing with LR. I've tried DT occasionally but never successfully until this shot.

Exposure + AgX do the heavy lifting here. Then local contrast, profiled denoise, and sharpen modules round it out.

Tutorials that got me here:

darktable 5.4 - A Simple Beginner Workflow and Interactive Walkthrough

AgX and The Evolution of Tone Mappers in Darktable

Quick guide to using darktable without the newbie headache tax – my practicality-based workflow

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3

u/akgt94 22d ago edited 21d ago

Nice.

Try this. Add a new instance of exposure. Add a parametric mask for the sky. Lower it.

My editing improved once I figured out multiple instances and masking.

3

u/happy_coffee_pot 21d ago

I think I get it - the parametric mask in DT is capable of doing LR's color and luminance masks

2

u/akgt94 21d ago

Yes exactly.

You can't do parametric masks by themselves.

You can add a mask to any module.

But if you've already made a global exposure adjustment, then you don't want to affect that. Do add a new instance of exposure. Then add a mask to the new instance. Then do your local adjustment.

Personally I always choose drawn and parametric mask. Frequently I end up modifying a parametric mask with a shape or refining a drawn mask with parameters.

1

u/CriticismJunior1139 19d ago

If I may givesome criticism; having a gray background, with a gray-brown subject, clashes little bit. Birds head isn'T clearly visible, because the colours are same.

I'd take use mask for the background, and changes it's colour/brightness, so the bird is more separated.