Sometimes it just takes a few experiments to come up with the completely unexpected. This image was not what I was aiming for but I'm really pleased I managed to produce this. You see the original is rather dull and bland given that iot was taken in late afternoon is very diffuse light and hardly any opportunity for interesting highlights and shadows. Nevertheless, this happened, and it makes me happy. Much happier than the previous bridge.
More experimenting methinks.
Canon EOS Kiss X5 ISO 100 f16 0.5s
Processed in +RawTherapee + +GIMP
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Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.
Explore the Tone Mapping tool (hover over it to get a tooltip that explains how to use it along with CIECAM02) in +RawTherapee and then use the L curve (from the Lab curves) as well as the CIECAM02 curves to tweak it to bring out the detail you want. This should let you get a photo with a nice sky as well as details in the land and water, without the halos.
Thanks for the tip, I've been a little confused with the curves as they're just labeled with letters but I've a few more photos to work on so I'll try that thanks 🙂