I want to openly thank you for trying to help me. You’ve been kind and helpful and I appreciate it. You’ve certainly been the exception to my experience on this forum.
Tom
Of course it is possible. it’s just that @Wolfgang prefers to use Nik SEP.
A reminder of one of my friend Helen’s images, slightly reminiscent of a certain well known photographer but not intended to be an imitation…
All that was needed to transform the sky was the red filter. Here’s what it looks like if I switch off the filter…
And here is the colour version before applying the Ilford Delta 100 film emulation…
But she didn’t add any colour wheel or channel mixer adjustments, just the red filter
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@Joanna Can you tell me where this red filter is located? For the life of me I’m missing it.
Tom
It should be on the FilmPack palette. And not just red, there are half a dozen or so colours to choose from, just like you would use on a film camera
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Thanks @Joanna
I didn’t even think to look there when I was trying things out on this image cause I was trying to work solely within PL8.
Tom
@Joanna One more question please. Again, I’m still not in front of my computer and won’t be until tomorrow. But I was just thinking… can the filter from filmpack be applied to a mask like the luminosity mask?
Edit: I was able to get in front of my computer for a little while tonight. Unfortunately it appears the answer to this is no. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Tom
I figured out what I was doing… ignore this please.
Ignore what? 
I have a copy of your post, which shows your right sidebar and, if I may, make a couple of suggestions…
On the left edge of some palette headers, you will find a little blue line. This is what triggers the popup description for that palette. You can disable this if it gets annoying by going to the Help menu and selecting the item to hide them…
The other thing I noticed is that you are showing the Local Adjustments palette “in-line”, which means you have to scroll down to use it.
If you look at my marker on my copy of your screenshot, you will see a paintbrush at the right end of the “header” row - clicking this hides all other palettes and only shows the LA palette on its own. So you can then remove that palette from the list of visible ones in the overall list…
Here is my palette list with that option…
The other buttons on that top bar do the same isolating of various tool groups.
To see all your tools again, simply click on the selected group button a second time.
By the way, the Colour Wheel on the LA palette might look the same as the one on the Colour Palette but it behaves differently in that it uses the selected area rather than providing a pipette.
Finally, for this post, you might like to look at rearranging your palettes and tools to better suit your needs and saving that arrangement as a Workspace. This can be useful if you have collapsed a few tools, as selecting your “home” Workspace will restore your favoured layout
May I suggest to download from https://riwodot.de/colormanagement.html
this file ( → link )
It shows some landscape pictures with blue sky,
from light and cloudy to dark blue.
.
Set PL8 to B&W and Compare mode …
reducing the → blue channel
playing with the Red filter (FP)
.
In Nik 7 SilverEfex …
you can use Colour Filter and Sensitivity.
Another editing
Video 1.dng.dop (17.0 KB)
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Thank you @Wolfgang
Tom
@PopsInABox this is not as simple as it seems. There are several ways of achieving this in PL8. The most controllable I find is to choose a B&W film from the renderings selectors in the FilmPack palette.
Before you go off into using presets, do be aware that most of the standard ones tend to be full presets - in other words, they take control of all settings, resetting them to zero if they are not used. This can mean you lose some settings that you have already chosen.
It is possible to create partial presets, which only affect a few adjustments but, for what you are trying to do in this example, I wouldn’t bother for now.
You may have already noticed that the Channel Mixer doesn’t really do that much to your image. Neither does the Colour Wheel. Of course, neither are worth anything if you are using a coloured filter as the image is filtered to a single colour before it reaches these tools.
Be warned, if you want to create dark skies, that it is all too easy to create edge halos on the transition from dark to light with some tools.
But, also that a halo might appear in the editing window at low magnification…
… that will disappear at higher magnification…
This is an artefact of the editing window, so don’t panic, just change the magnification of the viewer to verify if it will be a problem on the final result.
Whereas, with this image, the halos don’t appear either on the “normal” contrast…
… or on the version where I used the red filter…
Personally, that last version is not something I would not normally do for that particular shot
Haha… I think it looks great!
I’m honestly beginning to wonder/ask myself (in spite of the large financial investment I’ve made) if this is the right software (at least PL) for my purposes. (I guess meaning I might should be looking more at software that will allow more artistic endeavors than the impression that I’m getting from PL8)
Tom
Not sure what artistic endeavors you hope to find, but here’s a couple more interpretations to consider the possibilities…
The first not as dark as Moon over Hernandez, but without a moon, left some texture in the sky and water for the negative space.
The second one a few years ago, from @RexBlock, is clearly not Ansel Adam-like, but perhaps a way to show this software can do more than displayed in this short thread.
A thread for us to share presets! - DxO PhotoLab / Tutorials, tips & tricks - DxO Forums
PhotoLab is primarily a RAW processor, but with a whole range of artistic capabilities.
The only thing I find I need to use Affinity Photo for is either focus stacking or panoramic composites.
PL8 is a complex, but easier to use, app than Affinity Photo (to my mind) So far, I have not been defeated in what I want to achieve.
If you want to evaluate whether it meets your ideas, simply post an original and what you want to do with it. There’s always someone here who will take a shot at it.
Thanks for that @Joanna. Unfortunately, my very limited (twice now) experience of posting an image and asking about the software and techniques has resulted in me being very apprehensive to do so any further. While some, like yourself of course, have been extremely helpful, others have both publicly and via PM decided to take the opportunity to trash the image or further tell me that I shouldn’t even be doing what I’m trying to do because the image ‘doesn’t call for such thing.’ In spite of me saying that the image doesn’t matter and I’m asking about the software/techniques, etc.
Tom
No matter what forum you participate in, you’re always going to get this kind if thing. Ignore it and get on with learning. You can always mark such posts as “off topic” and they will be moderated.
i have been using PL since v1 and have had one or two annoyances but, on the whole, have created all sorts of beautiful artistic images. Here are just four, of varying types…
So, what “floats your boat?”
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This is true unfortunately… just wish people would actually read what I’m asking.
Tom
So took another stab at it… This is more like what I had in my mind with this image…
Basically used the general info from this thread and specifically the stuff here from Joanna.
Tom
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When I was working and I had to train new staff, the first thing I tried to teach them was that ‘nobody reads instructions’. I failed every time (over a period of over 20 years), because nobody reads instructions.
Your experience here is just another example of people not reading (your) instructions. Don’t be disheartened.
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