[Doundounba]

5. With the above settings, I still think the settings yield dull jpegs. Any suggestions?

Try Gimp. What to do kind of depends on what your histogram looks like, but usually for me using the Brightness/Contrast panel and adding anywhere from +5 to +10 on both really improves thing, IMHO.

[clackers]

I have concluded I'm terrible at using Darktable. No matter what I do, I prefer the jpeg output of the camera vs what I did in Darktable.

Ouch!

I think the best solution is to learn post processing- perhaps do a course?

The exact product won't matter. It just needs to be able to selectively alter exposure, contrast, tone, colour, sharpness and noise.

[house]

I use darktable and have made base curves that match my camera jpgs.See procedure [URL="http://http://www.darktable.org/2013/10/about-basecurves/"]here/URL] (you need to be quite tech savvy)

An alternative is to use Rawtherapee instead and get camera (and lens) profiles by copying it out of free Adobe downloads.

I find it useful to have the in camera jpg settings as a baseline from which i make changes.

[Crust]

I think the main thing I can't figure out is good noise reduction using darktable as well as lens correction. I'm using the pentax 18-135, so it seems to require a lot of correction which is not easy using darktable. I did find I prefer portrait in the camera jpeg settings. Right now, I'm using portrair with fine sharpening at -3 and contrast set at +1. I still don't like it as much as the output of what I got from the k-01 in terms of colors but it's closer.

Is there anybody using Darktable with the k-70 and the 18-135 lens that has figured out noise reduction and lens correction?

[ptclee]

I am new to photography and got my Pentax K70 with Sigma 18-35/.8 after using point and shoot for a few years, I also have problems getting the jpeg colors right - the reds are too dominant to the extent that even the orange has an unnatural red hue to it, I also could not save the color settings, grateful for some help