I highly appreciate all the concern I got for my problem! Now I'll try to reply to (some of) your posts.
First off, I made 2 mistakes in my initial statement:
1-My camera profile was not shot by me - I used the target shot kindly supplied by Imaging-Resource.com. Unfortunately, I can't retrieve the link to it, nor the raw file on my Mac.
2- my initial basic editing in RawTherapee was Lightness +40, Contrast +80, not the other way round as I posted.
Now some comments
@Andrew
Yes I'm aware of that WB only refers to the blue-yellow balance and neglects the magenta-green balance. But the 5000K camera WB complies with my fresh memory in most cases - why not in this, and why the sky in particular? This is not a scene with a tricky lighting - it's about-noon daylight with a sunny sky, with moving clouds.
@DP, reply#13 on May 01, 2018
Thank you for your effort.
@Tim, reply # 14
Of the 2 versions of your park scene, if viewed one at a time, both look credible to me. If viewed simultaneously, I would prefer the 1st one. The sky looks more credible to me, and I would find that more important than neutral shadows. Why should shadows be neutral?
@nirpat89, reply #18
Your sky looks VERY good to me! I will later have to try if I can duplicate it using your method. I'm not familiar with Levels. - The fore- and middle ground I find too dark. So if I succeed duplicating your sky, I'll apply it using a mask.
@ Stephen Ray, reply #19
In your rendering of my image, the sky looks even worse, and the trees are all too yellow. I'm afraid I will have to go on interfering...
@andrew, reply #20
That sky is blue at least, and it looks to me like it would be good if lightened.
@sebbe, reply #21
> As far as I understand it he is looking after the reason not how to turn the sky blue.
Yes, mainly. Of course I want to cure this image also.
Yes the lens was a 135 mm Zuiko, which has a greenish tint - not a yellow one.
> I would add some points on tint towards magenta and also a few kelvins towards yellow. See below.
No, on the contrary...! I think the sky needs more blue/cyan, not yellow, and not at all magenta...Unlike Tim in the next post, I find the foliage all too yellow in your rendering. I find my own image quite OK in THAT regard. That is the problem - the SKY is off - why?
@Doug Gray reply #28
> Most likely the problem isn't the ICC display profiles but partial adaptation when using monitors with different whitepoints.
This has to be considered. But now that I have gotten all these replies I can compare them to my initial rendering on the same monitor, and the problem is the same. Some have provided better renderings of the sky, but at the expense of the foliage, so they would have to be applied separately to the sky.
@ Doug Gray reply #31
> If that happened to me I would measure the Lab reading from the monitor and compare it to samples from the image in the same area.
I tried it using the Digital Color Meter, but I'm not familiar with Lab, so I don't know what to make of the results:
image sky left side: L*82.26, a* -2.96, b* -9.70
screen area: L*100 a*0.00 b*0.00
@Tim, reply #39
> Hening, are you seeing how cyanish green that entire image looks
Yes I do, but I find the sky more to my memory, so I would have to apply that rendering to the sky only.
@Alexey.Danilchenko, reply #42
> Reason - rubbish profile. What comes with ACR (profiles) is for most part of it not good so it may be beneficial to build and tune your own profile.
Alexey, I don't use Adobe profiles. As I stated initially, I built my own with DCamProf, in this case using a target shot supplied by Imaging-Resource.com.
Yes I also suspect the profile - I just don't know how to improve it.
@Stephen Ray reply #43
> IMO the OP's sky was never as blue as he believes
That is certainly a possible bias to be considered. I am aware of that the sky is "blue" near the zenith, but not so much near the horizon, where the blue fades out. But on a day like this, it does not become muddy or yellowish.
@TonyW, reply#44
Uff! That rendering seems perfect to me! Theoretically unsatisfactory that 'Auto' does it. I'll try to duplicate it and try to find out what 'Auto' does.
> Is there any reason why your first image has an embedded monitor profile?
I would think it is because it's a screen shot?
The version of RT I used was 5.3-602.
@ Tim, reply #47
> Hening still isn't explaining why the blue sky in the Raw Therapee screengrab looks a muddy yellow as he stated in his OP. Tony, did he message you and tell you he still see this no matter what Raw settings he uses? He's not answering what is causing the muddy yellow blue sky.
I don't understand. If I knew why that sky looks the way it does, I would not need to bother you guys with my question - ?
@ TonyW, reply #55
> My gut feeling is that the issue may be a poor monitor profile
The monitor profile is created with the Eizo Color Navigator and an i1 Display, to the target as mentioned.
So next stop will be trying to duplicate Tony's rendering in RT - tomorrow!
Good night - and thanks a lot!