More Fog

[Artshot]

This is a popular tourist photo, but this particular day the fog made all the background distractions disappear.

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, what WB did you use?

[Artshot]

Thanks. Auto white Balance. The photo is just the way it looked. Do you think the photo would benefit by processing and not loose the mystery of the fog?

[Cogito]

Thanks. Auto white Balance. The photo is just the way it looked. Do you think the photo would benefit by processing and not loose the mystery of the fog?

I don't know! What do you think?

[Shadowman]

Thanks. Auto white Balance. The photo is just the way it looked. Do you think the photo would benefit by processing and not loose the mystery of the fog?

Just the way it looked is fine but if you want a more dynamic capture consider playing with the WB.

[Artshot]

I will, thanks

[DanK]

I do think the WB may be a bit off--on this monitor, which isn't my calibrated one, it looks a bit magenta--but I don't think changing WB will make it more dynamic.

The reason it doesn't look dynamic is tonality. When you shoot in foggy conditions, you generally get a very limited tonal range and little contrast. This image has both of these problems. Look at the histogram: with the exception of a little tail, it is crammed into less than half of the tonal range. This is easy to fix, but it creates a dilemma for you: the more you add tonal range and contrast, the less foggy it will look. You have to decide what you want.

To illustrate this, I did only two edits. First, I changed the WB. I moved the color slightly from magenta to green. You can see that this changed changed the color cast, but it didn't make the image any more dynamic.



Then I moved the white and black points in using a levels tool. I didn't add contrast with a curves tool or local contrast; all I did was increase the tonal range. This isn't a complete edit, but it illustrates the impact of tonal range.