Next, I steepen the curve on both the A and B channels to increase saturation. This had the effect of brightening the sky and giving more definition to the clouds. To do this, I clicked on two points of blue in the sky - a light blue and a dark blue, and then I adjusted that section of the curve to be steeper and a slight S-curve shape. For this particular image, the white and black points looked good, however I wanted to create more contrast in the sky. I gauge based on where it shows these are on the tone curve if the image needs exposure adjustment: a white value should be around 95-100 and a black value between 5-10 if either is below or above those ranges, I adjust the line using an S-curve to achieve the correct exposure. I select the color picker from the module and click a point that looks like it is nearly completely white and another that looks completely black. The first adjustment I make is to the overall exposure using the L channel. I spend a lot of time using the Tone Curve module, often using multiple instances of it in order to perform several different adjustments.

Below I present the rough outline of my standard workflow while processing the original RAW image to the result you see above.įor more information on processing in LAB, I highly recommend Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum by Dan Margulis.

Fortunately, Darktable's deeply-integrated LAB support and powerful parametric masks make these difficult shots easy to work with. I find myself frequently working in high-contrast scenes which makes post-processing a challenge since adjustments to the exposure wreak havoc with colors and I often want to only selectively modify part of the image.

Darktable mask