Blue Ice

[Canadian Girl]

I just wanted to share this with everyone. I have never seen this occur before on Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada. I felt like I was in Alaska or on another planet. I have adjusted the brightness and the sharpness somewhat in Elements.



Any comments are welcome.
Cindie

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Cindie,

I like the composition – it looks like rocky mountain peaks. Was the ice blue to your eye when standing in front of it or when you opened the image at home? On my screen the image still looks a bit bright as I cannot make out detail in the white area and given the relatively small dynamic range on the shot I think you might be able to get more detail with a little less brightness and some added contrast. I shot also looks a little soft and maybe a tad of sharpening would help as well.

[jamn4ex]

looks cool.... real cool

[Canadian Girl]

Hi Cindie,

I like the composition – it looks like rocky mountain peaks. Was the ice blue to your eye when standing in front of it or when you opened the image at home? On my screen the image still looks a bit bright as I cannot make out detail in the white area and given the relatively small dynamic range on the shot I think you might be able to get more detail with a little less brightness and some added contrast. I shot also looks a little soft and maybe a tad of sharpening would help as well.

Yes the ice is blue when you stand infromnt of it. Thanks for the comment on the brightness. I may have brightened it up too much...I'll try again. Can you explain the "small dynamic range?" Is this something I can fix?
Thanks for your input.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Cindie,

I made your image bigger to make it easier for people to see.

Can you explain the "small dynamic range?" Is this something I can fix?

I downloaded and here it is with histogram;


What Peter means is that a lot of the image content is within a distinct range of values ith the majority beiing towards the right hand side (i.e. the brighter side)

Below is what I got after I had attempted a fix (with Elemnents);



Notice how the right hand side is spread out more; that's a wider tonal range - you can see it in the picture too.

How? (from menu bar in Elements)
Enhance > UnSharp Mask,
then dialled in 30% and 80 pixel radius and 0 threshold

Then a bit of a sharpen;
Enhance > UnSharp Mask,
then dialled in 100% and 0.3 pixel radius and 3 threshold

HTH,

[Canadian Girl]

Oh it looks so much better...thanks Dave. I'll give it all a try. I'm not sure how my picture ended up as a thumbnail, I'm sure I didn't resize it.

[Peter Ryan]

Thanks for picking up on the response Dave, I had to go for lunch.

[Donald]

Cindie

Now, that's a lot of ice!

Peter and Dave have dealt with the technical bits around exposure and post-processing. This is obviously a tricky one to do given that what you've got is a lot of the same thing. But what you've actually got in there, once you spread out the tonal range a bit and can see more detail, is nice shapes and lines. Well done for seeing the possibility of a picture there in the first place.

[rob marshall]

I was listening to an Antartic explorer on BBC R4 last week. One of the things he said was how surprisingly colourful Antartica was, including blue ice!

[Camellia]

Hi Cindie

Good to see you here! I told you'd get good advice here

I like the composition too. It has an almost abstract painting feel to it. I could stare at that pic for hours. It has a soothing quality to it.

How close to home was it? It looks like polar bears shouldn't be far away. You don't have any in your backyard do you?

R

[Canadian Girl]

Cindie

Now, that's a lot of ice!

Peter and Dave have dealt with the technical bits around exposure and post-processing. This is obviously a tricky one to do given that what you've got is a lot of the same thing. But what you've actually got in there, once you spread out the tonal range a bit and can see more detail, is nice shapes and lines. Well done for seeing the possibility of a picture there in the first place.

Thanks Donald,
I'm very excited to learn out to work with the tonal range. I've have been looking at many similar shots and wanted to get the same great results but just never really knew how. I'll be busy now...hopw no one needs me for awhile..

[tameigh]

We get that kind of ice around here a lot of winters. It probably froze on a clear calm night without snow and slush mucking it up.\. The other day when we got 2 ft of powder snow dumped on us, it had that same glacial cast. Looks like Lake Erie has cleaned up a *lot* since I lived there.

[Canadian Girl]

Hi Cindie

Good to see you here! I told you'd get good advice here

I like the composition too. It has an almost abstract painting feel to it. I could stare at that pic for hours. It has a soothing quality to it.


How close to home was it? It looks like polar bears shouldn't be far away. You don't have any in your backyard do you?

Thanks Raylee, I'm looking forward to learning so much here. I'll chip a piece off and freeze it till you come to visit...lol


R

[Canadian Girl]

We get that kind of ice around here a lot of winters. It probably froze on a clear calm night without snow and slush mucking it up.\. The other day when we got 2 ft of powder snow dumped on us, it had that same glacial cast. Looks like Lake Erie has cleaned up a *lot* since I lived there.

It sure is a spectacular sight to see.