Frozen Lake

[joebranko]

A large area of Lake Erie, close to the shore at Port Dover is now frozen, and covered by a thick blanket of snow. This pic shows kids playing on the ice of the lake. C&C welcome and appreciated. ISO 100, 53mm, f 8, 1/320"

[Manfred M]

Joe - the first thing I notice about this image is that it is quite underexposed; probably by a stop or more.

The issue in shooting on these snowy, overcast days is that your camera's light meter is "fooled" as it assumes it is an average image. Check your histogram and use exposure compensation to override what the camera is suggesting; I expect that it is biased towards the left and your bright white values are nowhere near the 240 value I would expect in this type of shot.

The sky is overcast and not particularly interesting. You might be able to pull out some textures in the raw conversion, if they do exist in the original data.

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, agree about the underexpose, try to take advantage or disadvantage of the warm colors of the people's jackets. The warm reds can either distract from other elements or provide a good beacon for the viewers eyes. In the case of this image, the reds should help lead the viewers' eyes toward the lighthouse.

[joebranko]

Joe - the first thing I notice about this image is that it is quite underexposed; probably by a stop or more.

The issue in shooting on these snowy, overcast days is that your camera's light meter is "fooled" as it assumes it is an average image. Check your histogram and use exposure compensation to override what the camera is suggesting; I expect that it is biased towards the left and your bright white values are nowhere near the 240 value I would expect in this type of shot.

The sky is overcast and not particularly interesting. You might be able to pull out some textures in the raw conversion, if they do exist in the original data.

Here is the original without any processing. I may have played with the contrast in the shot I posted originally. But this one is untouched:



In this next shot I have brightened the pic in Lightroom. Is this better?
Your comment that I "might be able to pull out some textures in the raw conversion" makes me suspect that I am missing something in the conversion.

[joebranko]

Nice effort, agree about the underexpose, try to take advantage or disadvantage of the warm colors of the people's jackets. The warm reds can either distract from other elements or provide a good beacon for the viewers eyes. In the case of this image, the reds should help lead the viewers' eyes toward the lighthouse.

Thanks John. I have brightened the exposure; please see reply to Manfred. Is this better?

[Geoff F]

I suppose the obvious question is 'How bright was the actual scene?' You should be able to recover that same level of brightness even if the camera did under expose.

[Manfred M]

Joe - I've imported the original shot into Photoshop, opened the histogram window and taken a screenshot:



Notice how the bulk of the data is clustered near the middle of the histogram. As most of the scene is snow, which is, well "snow white" and clouds, which are a very light gray, I would expect to see the histogram pushed to the right of the image, where those values sit.


Now, when I do push them to the right, and ensure that the shadow detail is not lost, using the black and the white sliders (you have these in Lightroom), look at what happens to the position of the colour distribution in the histogram; it move to the right and the way I've handled this, I don't blow out any highlights or shadow details. I've set the black point to 20,20,20) and the white point to (240,240,240), so the colour balance and lighting is pretty accurate. Note what the histogram looks like now.




I haven't played with any other settings. Your metadata says the picture was taken at 4:20PM, a couple of days ago, so it should still have been over an hour before sunset, and the scene should have been fairly bright. It's quite possible I've taken the highlights too far, but I'm trying to demonstrate a point here.

There is no right or wrong answer here, and not having been there, I really have no idea as to what the actual lighting situation was. What I can say is that we should try to process the image so that the colour temperature / balance is correct and that no highlights are blown out. It is preferable to preserve shadow detail as well, and with the diffuse lighting you had on the day you took this shot, it's a pretty safe bet that there was very little in the way of shadows due to the overcast sky, and the limited shadow detail in the image would definitely not have been blown out.

[Shadowman]

Thanks John. I have brightened the exposure; please see reply to Manfred. Is this better?

Joe, your edit is much better, the warm colors have maintained their vibrancy and the sky/snow looks more appealing. The lighthouse has decent values but if it is indeed your center of interest; perhaps a bit more contrast to help it stand out or even play around with the footprints as a leading line. I however like it as it is in the edit.

[selig1656]

The great challenge of capturing snow with a diffused light source and with the other components leaning towards gray/white.Yeap as stated pic seems underexposed ,also how was this metered ?

[joebranko]

The great challenge of capturing snow with a diffused light source and with the other components leaning towards gray/white.Yeap as stated pic seems underexposed ,also how was this metered ?

Thanks Raymond. Metered with the 'in camera' light meter. I have been adjusting the exposure to move the needle to the center ( zero point) of the meter.

[IzzieK]

On another area of editing, using the levels option, if you look at the output levels underneath, moving the slider to the right will also make the white truly whites...

[joebranko]

On another area of editing, using the levels option, if you look at the output levels underneath, moving the slider to the right will also make the white truly whites...

Thanks Izzie!

Is this in Lightroom or PS?

[IzzieK]

Thanks Izzie!

Is this in Lightroom or PS?

Photoshop...I am still using PSCS5 right now but I will get into it when I go back home. I do not know Lightroom because I do not have that program.