2019 P52 - 1st Qtr - Sandy(Skitterbug)

[Geoff F]

That scene, Sandy is certainly one of those cases where I would make two conversions from the original Raw file with different brightness levels then gently combine them as masks using a low opacity soft edged brush to carefully merge the two together without any join showing.

If there was no movement in the trees you could have taken a couple of bracketed exposure shots. But this may produce misalignment if there was any wind rock movement.

Using ACR, I might try setting some negative values for the Whites and Highlights; which could possibly help if working on a single not stacked image. But I don't know if your software allows for these adjustments.

[Cantab]

Sandy, if I read the EXIF data correctly, you were shooting in manual exposure mode. As Manfred indicated, when shooting snow, or any other particularly light coloured object (glittering water, etc.) it's necessary to adjust what the camera's exposure meter suggests. The exposure meter always thinks that it's looking at a mid-grey.

A rough and ready solution in your case would have been to brighten the exposure by one stop. My guess is that that would have got you into the ball park -- particularly if time was of the essence (parked on a road on a bridge!). And, if you had time, taking bracketed exposures would maximize the likelihood of a decent exposure even if later merging them wasn't an option.

A white balance card wouldn't have helped an enormous amount in this case. Since clean snow is always white, that's a pretty good after the fact test whether the colour balance is okay.

Having said all that, I like your final edited image.

[Rufus]

A rough and ready solution in your case would have been to brighten the exposure by one stop. My guess is that that would have got you into the ball park.

This is puzzling me. Is this a solution for the snow or for the overall image?

If you brighten the exposure, by increasing apperture size or using a longer shutter speed, that would whiten the snow but more of the sky would be blown out. Would it be better for the overall image to expose for the sky and brighten other areas in the post processing?

[Manfred M]

I don't have the same PP app as you do. When I look at it in LightRoom (desktop), it shows the value in percent (50.5%,50.3%,50.9%) so I'm going to assume this matches fairly closely the area you were choosing.
Affinity Photo doesn't give any values.... I'm not happy about that and will need to question them about it.

I do see the issue in Lightoom, but snow that shows that it is about 50% in each of the three channels, which suggests that while there is no colour cast (which would be expected for these conditions and appropriate white balance), it suggests that the snow is far too dark. The brightest areas should likely be in the 95% - 98% range.

I'll experiment a bit with the exposure compensation. Would the use of a white balance card help? And there again, I'm not really familiar about how to put the results from a image with a white balance card in use, and apply it to the rest of the photos.... more studying required probably...
I like the idea of the adjustments and use of histogram and I'll give that some practice.

White balance cards are purely used to make sure that there is a neutral white balance in the image. They are rarely used for landscape work. Understanding your histograms and ensuring that you capture the full tonal range is what you are trying to do.

I've had the blown out sky problem before. Is the only way to correct this problem through the use of stacking? Or how do you overcome it? This is probably a beginner's question but its baffled me.

A blown sky by itself suggests overexposure, in this situation a simple global exposure tweak is likely all that is required to fix it. Using the Lightroom and pulling the Highlights slider to the left is all that is needed. In general, one should try to avoid large areas like this that have been blown out, but certain types of issues; specular highlights or hot spots from light sources might cannot always be fixed.

[skitterbug]

Hi Geoff - I believe our photo software companies try their hardest to be sure that there is nothing much alike in how things are done. I like Affinity Photo for many things but I haven't learned it inside out and backward yet. I understand your thought process though and maybe I can think about how to replicate it. Work in progress this year. <grin> Thanks for the info.

[skitterbug]

Thanks Manfred. I appreciate your explanations. I'm also glad that these answers are in my P52 so I can find them back and read them again!

[skitterbug]

Hi Bruce - Whew - no need to mess with the white balance card.

You are correct in that we didn't have a lot of time for me to capture the image that I've planned for. I had my camera set and ready with what I thought would work. Hubby watched for traffic and I was happily taking pictures. I didn't pixel peep because of time but probably I should have.

I'll definitely adjust the exposure compensation and probably use bracketing when attempting more snow pictures. Well, along with all the rest of the settings that have to be considered. This hobby isn't for the faint of heart! <grin>

Thanks for commenting!

[Cantab]

...And there again, I'm not really familiar about how to put the results from a image with a white balance card in use, and apply it to the rest of the photos.... more studying required probably...

Sandy, for future reference, Julieanne Kost has many video tutorials on using Lightroom: http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/lightroom-training-videos .

This video from her tutorials has a good explanation of how to use Lightroom’s colour temperature dropper on a neutral part of an image (such as a WhiBal card): https://youtu.be/-AraTUsPc_0 (see just after the 55 second mark). Doing this is probably the simplest way of using the WhiBal card to adjust the colour temperature of the photo.

[skitterbug]

Hi Bruce - Thanks! I'll take a look at the links you have posted!

[Manfred M]

Doing this is probably the simplest way of using the WhiBal card to adjust the colour temperature of the photo.

A gray card or WhiBal card are generally reserved for studio or portraiture work, not for landscape photography.

In this scene, there is a lot of white in the scene itself; it's called snow and should be great for pulling a white balance.

[skitterbug]

A gray card or WhiBal card are generally reserved for studio or portraiture work, not for landscape photography.

In this scene, there is a lot of white in the scene itself; it's called snow and should be great for pulling a white balance.

Hi Manfred - I am sitting here chuckling because you've made something that I tried to complicate, into something more simple. I will remember this answer! Thanks!

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred - I am sitting here chuckling because you've made something that I tried to complicate, into something more simple. I will remember this answer! Thanks!

A bit of a warning though. The reason that gray cards and WhiBal cards don't generally work in landscape work is the same reason that snow does not always work.

White is a great reflector and will pick up colours from nearby objects; trees or the flowing water and can in fact have a bit of a colour cast. If you pick up one of these colours, your entire image could look too warm or too cool. If you get a weird looking colour, just try sampling somewhere else until you get something that you like. I find that I might have to sample in 5 or 6 different areas until I find one that works for me.

[skitterbug]

A bit of a warning though. The reason that gray cards and WhiBal cards don't generally work in landscape work is the same reason that snow does not always work.

White is a great reflector and will pick up colours from nearby objects; trees or the flowing water and can in fact have a bit of a colour cast. If you pick up one of these colours, your entire image could look too warm or too cool. If you get a weird looking colour, just try sampling somewhere else until you get something that you like. I find that I might have to sample in 5 or 6 different areas until I find one that works for me.

Hi Manfred - thanks for the warning/tip!

Enjoy the day!

[skitterbug]

Week 4 - The weather forecasters say we are in a winter vortex. Whatever it is, it is exceedingly cold for our area. I admire anyone who continues to photograph outdoor scenes during such bitter temperatures.

I'm still tryiing to master snow scenes making white snow white. I hope that the original image looks closer to what I should have. There were shadows in the image but some white areas do appear behind the broken kettle.

Settings used: f/16 - ISO100 - 1/60

Original (exported as a JPG)



After editing:

Discarded Kettle

[Cantab]

Sandy, I’m looking at these on my iPad and the colour balance looks good. But iPads are unprofiled and photos always look different on my monitor.

Your snow looks clean and free of odd colour casts. I have a somewhat vague recollection of reading that using the colour temperature dropper on blown out snow (255, 255, 255 — not wind blown ) is not completely reliable. I’m not sure why that would be. Perhaps Manfred or someone else will comment.

[skitterbug]

Sandy, I’m looking at these on my iPad and the colour balance looks good. But iPads are unprofiled and photos always look different on my monitor.

Your snow looks clean and free of odd colour casts. I have a somewhat vague recollection of reading that using the colour temperature dropper on blown out snow (255, 255, 255 — not wind blown ) is not completely reliable. I’m not sure why that would be. Perhaps Manfred or someone else will comment.

Hi Bruce - When I hover the "white balance" picker over the snow in Light Room, I can find some at 95%. I didn't apply white balance however since I didn't like the change it made to the appearance of the snow. Instead, I worked more with the highlights, shadows, etc.

I'll definitely be interested to know how this appears on your monitor! Thanks for replying!

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, were you exposing for shadows?

[skitterbug]

Nice effort, were you exposing for shadows?

Hi John - Not sure what you mean? I believe in this photo, I metered on the brighter snow and then composed on the kettle? Is that what you are asking?

[Geoff F]

Very difficult scene, Sandy, because your main subject is in shadow with brighter areas behind. If it was the other way around it would be much easier. Your white balance looks OK to me.

However, with your edit, the subject would still benefit from a little more brightness, but the background is already beginning to become overly bright with a small triangle near the right side kettle lip which is looking like it is over exposed.

This would have been a good scene for bracketed exposure shooting; or two conversions merged from a Raw file. As it is, I think I would have started from a Curves Adjustment Layer, carefully masked, to decrease brightness on the lighter areas. Then a brightening Curves adjustment to cover the whole scene, but slightly reduced by masking where necessary.

I find that selectively decreasing any overly bright areas as the first step makes the final brightness adjustment easier to apply; although a little masking out of the brighter spots may still be necessary.

Also, I think I would try slightly reducing the amount of foreground.

[Shadowman]

Hi John - Not sure what you mean? I believe in this photo, I metered on the brighter snow and then composed on the kettle? Is that what you are asking?

Sandy,
The camera settings you chose (slightly overexposed) suggest you were trying to expose for the shadows, slightly underexposing would've suggested you were exposing for the snow. I'm basing my assumptions on camera settings used, time of day, and final output.