After the Storm

Spotted after a wet snow storm which coated everything in sight.

Bright sunny skies here are giving way to another incoming front

which diminishes the effect of the sun. This is a snowmobile trail

passing through an open field. A careful observer will see the

cross country skier just to the right of the trail by the tree

line. Please read the Technical Details and then I promise to

receive your comments\critique gratefully. Best, LM.

a very good job

Len, there's lots of promise in this shot. How about adding a bit more brightness and contrast? On my monitor, it looks too flat.

Dariusz, Thanks for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated!

 

Jeff, I have to agree with your assessement. I was trying to preserve detail in the sky around the sun & perhaps was too concentrated on that area at the expense of the overall scene. How does my re-work hold up? Best to both, LM.

That's better, Len. I see the problem now with the sky and cloud detail. That's surprising, given the latitude of neg film. I would be inclined to try lightening the FG even more if it can be done.

There is probably enough dynamic range in the negative, I would scan twice and make a composite of the darker version for the sky and the brighter for the snow part. Jeff is right, a bit more contrast and brightness for the snow would not hurt. Without touching the sky, so you should mask the sky, kind of digital grad ND (works surely best with the scans from the original, but I tried to show what I mean here).

Aside from this tech stuff this is a very nice composition with the lead-in curve, the backlight.

 

Cheers

Carsten

I like this shot but felt that the snow was too grey, here is one that I played with a little.

Carsten, You are correct; this is a properly exposed frame of Portra NC 400 and just loaded with info. What could be mistaken for flare at the top, just left of center, is a sun-dog, a rainbow if you will, and it has some very subtle colours associated with it in the original version. The colours here are very weak (some say NC=no colour & here they aren't far off the mark) so a B&W conversion was an easy decision for me. I purposely shot into the sun, daring the 50mmPS lens to exhibit some flare but it didn't show very much, a plus for the lens. I like your suggestion to do a ND filter effect in PS and as soon as I refresh my skills in that area I'll give it a try. Your input is always highly valued and I thank you for it. Best, LM.

 

Stuart, Define 'Played'. I see what you did & would appreciate learning how you did it. Your version has the snow a little too light & the contrast a little too high for me but I imagine fine tuning it would be fairly easy once one had the basic skills down pat. Yours is another opinion held in high regard at this end of the e-spectrum. Many thanks also. Best, LM.

Len: What a lovely shot. The exquisite details of light and shadow in the immediate foreground, followed by the rough curve of the trail and the gap between the trees sets a perfect winter's scene.

 

I agree with the earlier posters regarding contrast and with Carsten re effecting a blended dual scan. I've attached yet another version (sigh...) that tries to lay down a carpet of light (& shadow) in the near foreground to emphasize this area. This was done with curves and a lot of dodging/a little burning. The sky's glare was reduced by using calculation in the multiply blend mode. This has the added benefit of adding density to the brightest areas of cloud. It may alter the lighting more than you want, though.

 

Lovely image. Worth the work, I think.

Hi, I first selected just the snow and increased the contrast as much as I dared. I guessed that the light was quite hard so thought to make the contrast rather high. The I applied unsharp mask to the whole image first with a large radius and small percentage about 20 radius and around 10 percent. That bumps the local contrast up even more. Then I applied a more normal unsharp mask radius around 0.7 and percent around 100-150.. Then a tweaked the contrast a little more for the whole image with the curves. Lastly I selected the middle of the image using a large feather radius and inverted the selection so the edges of the image were selected and I then darkened the edges using curves.

 

As you may have guessed I am enjoying rather high contrast images at the moment.

Patricia, Stuart, I feel so inadequate! :-) Both your PS skills are far above my pay grade at the moment. I've lot's to learn. Patricia, I love the way you rendered the sky. It's so much like I remember it. Like I said, the details are there if one has the skills to dig them out. You've come as close as anyone to getting the optimum from this shot. I wouldn't usually leave so much sky showing but felt that the cloud patterns were interesting enough to include this much of them without them competing too much with the foreground for attention.

 

Stuart, I almost think I could follow your instructions & will give it a try. It's a delicate balancing exercise to get just the right amount of contrast in the snow without losing too much detail but your current high contrast fetish is just a tad too high for me, especially after having seen this scene in it's original form. But this is where the 'artistic license' comes in. PS enables us to get what WE see out of the frame, a good thing I think. Thanks for participating. Best to both, LM.

Here is one more for you. I left out the aggressive sharpening on this one and toned it a little with the hue saturation. I somehow prefere this version to my first one.

Stuart, Who needs to take a lot of photographs if there are so may options starting with only one? Your latest offering has really opened up the book of possibilities. Many thanks, LM.

FANTASTIC!! You are a master!!

Immanol, Thanks for your (too) kind remarks. Glad you like it. Best, LM.

Len, This is a beautiful shot and worth all of the different interpretations. An excellent candidate for BW IMHO. You had a good eye to see the shot and composed it well. You should consider all of the different versions a very high compliment!

Greg, I'm truly pleased with the result which started out to be mainly a test for flare tendency of my 50mm PS. Any flare you see here is due to the sun on the incoming storm clouds, not the lens itself. Double pleasure! Perhaps I'll see what Costco can do for $1.49 :-) Best, LM.