"Winter's Grotto"

While this may be in the most recent folder, the image was made in April of this year. A freak late snowstorm presented me with a winter wonderland. The entire area was engulfed in heavy fog, so the opportunities were limited at first. Then a sliver of sun broke through and the landscape came alive. The obvious trick here would be to tame the dynamic range. As usual, I bracketed several exposures. Then came the true challenge. Combine two of the exposures in PS to convey the moment. Several unsuccessful attempts were made, all resulting in obvious haloes along the tree line. I shelved the files in frustration. I recently developed a useful masking technique that seems to alleviate most of these problems. Now the scene of my recollection was realized; a mixture of cool and warm tones across a snowy landscape with a brooding sky. Once the blend was complete, I realized that I had pulled a black point, which worked well for contrast, but didn't recreate an accurate atmosphere. In softly lit, foggy conditions such as this, there would be no blacks because of the muted, scattered light. Another challenge was born: how to lighten only the blacks. The answer lies in an often unused adjustment layer called "selective color". A powerful tool that not only allows you to adjust individual colors, but also allows adjustment of blacks, whites and neutral tones. I simply applied a minor upward slide of the blacks, being careful not to infuse a flat, milky result. There are still dark tones, just no true blacks. Indeed, not some exotic landscape that would garner the majorities praise. Instead, a simple moment of rare light upon a fleeting landscape. Within a few hours, the snow would nearly vanish with the exception of the shady areas. Please consider the Larger preview before commenting. Thanks!!

Thanks for taking a moment to read and observe! Please consider the Larger preview!

I love the tones in this, Mark, though there's a bit of a too-strong cyan cast in the snow on my monitor (MacBook Pro).  It seems that, with the breaking sun and sky color there should be a somewhat warmer tone in the fog.  Regardless, the fog and the light snow blanket lend a feeling of weight to the atmosphere such that I can really imagine the quiet that must have defined much of the experience of this scene.

Also, I'd be interested to hear more about the "masking technique" you mentioned.  You're turning out to be a fairly regular inspiration for technical ideas!

Mark, I'm also seeing an unnatural cyan cast to the snow on my HP PC monitor that feels like it needs to be a truer blue.

Thanks John and Dave! The web upload was missing an adjustment layer for the cyan cast that somehow got discarded when I flattened the duplicate file. The new upload is in the system. It will still have cool tones, but more in balance. Whoops! John, my new masking technique is as follows. I go to the channels palette. I choose the color channel with the most contrast, usually blue. I duplicate the channel by dragging it into the new layer icon. I then choose: layer, adjustment layer and then I apply a hard curve by dragging both white and black sliders inward. I especially want the sky to go completely white. Then I drag the new channel into the selection icon to make it a selection. Click on RGB and back to the layers palette. I will have my brighter exposure (shadows exposure) above my darker exposure (sky or highlights). I will invert the selection and click on the layer mask icon. The darker sky will punch through and the midtones will blend while the shadows are retained. I will then inspect at 100% for any blending issues and hand blend where needed. Sometimes this means slightly darkening the transition from horizon to sky, but not so much to create a grad shadow appearance. Hand blending is necessary even with the masking, but the new mask technique has allowed me to move past the process of making tricky selections and has also aided in providing a smooth transition along the horizon. Hope that all makes sense! (BTW, you may need to clear your browser to see the newer upload. Sometimes it won't appear for a few hours however)

As always your composition is well thought out and spot on. The pp blend is to be complimented as I know the problems you faced and they seem well tamed and natural looking. There is one thing that caught my eye right away and bothered me. The tree on the right and bush at the lower left seem somewhat too sharp and a bit crunchy for this soft foggy scene. I know that you were much closer to these and they were less affect by the fog but to me they are still standing out too much against your soft foggy background. This is just my opinion and by no means a deal breaker for wonderful scene. As always Mark, your work is both educational and a pleasure to view.

Yes, the cyan coloring is much more effective now!

I tried out the masking technique you described here.  Thanks for that.  Unfortunately, some of the details of your description don't seem to apply to the Mac version of CS4, in particular the "dragging channel onto New Layer" icon part.  I couldn't figure out how to make a layer from a channel for anything.

Nonetheless, this gave me a nice idea for something related.  I duplicated the base layer, then selected the most contrasty channel as you describe.  From this, I made a monochrome layer using the Channel Mixer, by zeroing out the two less-contrasty channels.  Following this, I cranked the layer contrast as you described.  Inverted this layer, then changed the blend mode to "overlay". 

Now for the tricky part - erasing this layer except for the shadowed areas. I think the best way to do it is to anchor the history brush, then erase everything in the layer.  Following this, use the History Brush to restore those parts of the layer where you want to bring back the shadow detail.  I finished with a 20 pixel Gaussian Blur filter on the layer.

Here's an example that I just worked up:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=11749972&size=lg

Color, saturation, sharpening, and local contrast work were done in 16-bit LAB mode.

Thanks Leo and John! Leo, always good to hear from you. I see your point and well taken. I probably should have masked the sharpening selectively on the web uploaded version. Another shortcut of mine that yielded unsatisfactory results. The full res version is sharp as well, but doesn't appear crunchy. I appreciate your feedback. John, I am working with CS3 and a Mac, so it was a syntax shortcoming on my part (I have CS5 on my laptop, but my desktop does not have a Intel processor). I should have said drag the channel into the "create new channel" icon. When in the channels palette, the create new channel icon is next to the trash can. When you drag a channel onto it, it makes a duplicate of that channel. Then make the curves adjustment as stated. Then drag the duplicate adjusted channel onto the dotted circle which is the "load channel as selection" icon. Once the channel is converted to a selection, click on the top RGB channel, then go back to the layers palette. Since I am working with the brighter exposure on top, I need to invert the selection. If the darker exposure were above the lighter, then there would be no need to invert. While the selection is active, I simply click the "add a mask" icon and the selection is converted into a mask that looks just like the duplicate channel, only inverted. This allows the darker sky to punch through on the brighter exposure. The reason for adjusting the channel to make the sky part all white, and then inverting it to make it black, is to make sure that there will be no blending of two skies, which will produce "ghosting" of clouds that have moved. That is one reason I do not like HDR software plugins. Whew, I'm out of breath! BTW, fantastic work with your Sierra example. Your technique is a product of trial and error that worked quite well!!

Love this one Mark! You've captured the beauty of that late spring snow storm nicely. Wonderful diffused light, and excellent post processing was required to pull this off. Fabulous work, and thanks for sharing your technique with us. I shall have a go at it asap. That may solve some issues for me. Pretty weak post on my front ;-)

All the best,
Neil

Thanks Neil!! I hope anything I have shared can help you with your postpro. You do a mighty good job but as I always say "there's strength in numbers", so gleaning any techniques offered on this site and elsewhere will help us achieve more with less time. That's what's so good about PN.

A wonderful scene. Living in an area where there is snow for about 5 to 6 months a year does expose me to snow under different lighting conditions. However I was not here so I don't know what the light looked like so any recommendations might not be valid if one is trying to 'correct' the image.

With snow and most of my images I try and get the 'density' to a desired state and then I start looking at color. My impression here is that the snow looks too dark and as i see it on my monitor - there is a magenta (blue/red) bias.

Based on the above i would lighten the overall density without losing any highlights (better done at the RAW stage). I would then move the color balance more towards yellow (less blue) and the image should take on a warmer look because I think i see a bit of red.

I have a feeling you already know all of this technical stuff so I may just be wasting my time.

All the very best,

I took a minute to do the following change - not better and perhaps way off want you saw at the scene. I just followed what I recommended: lighten and color balance more yellow.

Thanks Tony! My experience for exposing snow is minimal, mainly because I don't often have the opportunity to photograph it, and I love to! I am basing my postpro on what I recall visually. Before the sun came out, it was dark and cold. When I saw the sun trying to squeak through, I quickly set up before it brightened the surrounding landscape. My monitor is needing some calibration for sure, based upon some recent printing that had a color shift, yet I used a custom profile, so something is off. The version you have provided is a good effort, but it really does appear much too warm, based upon my recollection. When I get calibrated, I will have another look. Most likely I will be making some adjustments, but nothing that would place this on the warm side. I appreciate your suggestions. You always give me a refreshing perspective and it is most welcome!