How to Photograph and Edit Snowy Scenes • PhotoTraces

Do you wish to know my favourite snow images suggestions to enhance your winter images?

The winter season affords panorama and journey photographers distinctive alternatives that can not be replicated.

Here, in Montreal, we’ve got lengthy winters with loads of snow. As a rule, I can shoot snowy landscapes from the center of December till the top of March. And immediately, I wish to share with you the way I strategy winter images.

Since capturing and modifying winter landscapes presents a unique set of challenges, I’ve separated this text into two components. First, we deal with the challenges of capturing and, then, we tackle the challenges of post-processing.

Snow Photography Tips: Shooting

The predominant problem of photographing snowy landscapes is the predominantly white coloration.

The white tends to idiot the digicam’s metering techniques by making it imagine that the scene is way brighter than it truly is. To compensate, the metering system lowers the publicity and, in consequence, we get underexposed images with ugly gray snow.

Below are my favourite suggestions and strategies on the best way to correctly expose snowy landscapes.

01. Shoot in RAW

The RAW format provides you a much wider latitude to right your errors in post-processing. The logic right here is straightforward: you attempt to gather as a lot data from the scene as attainable and determine what to do with it later.

Related: RAW vs JPEG

02. Use Exposure Compensation

This is my favourite approach—the one I at all times use when capturing snowy landscapes.

Since I do know prematurely that my digicam’s metering system will likely be deceived by the abundance of white snow, I set the publicity compensation worth between +1 and +2 stops for all my pictures.

I have a tendency to not tweak the publicity compensation worth for each shot and think about the +1 worth to be a dependable center floor for many pictures. I discover that it’s a lot less complicated to do the ultimate wonderful tuning in post-processing.

03. Do Not Trust Your Camera or Your Eyes

When capturing winter landscapes, choosing the right publicity is at all times a wonderful stability. The intention is to make sure the snow in your pictures is as white as attainable with out being pure white (clipped). As quickly as any given pixel in your {photograph} turns white, it now not carries any data and it’s unimaginable to recuperate any information from it throughout modifying.

As you already know, you can’t belief the metering system when capturing snowy scenes. But, on the identical time, you can’t rely solely in your eyes when taking a look at your digicam’s LCD display or digital viewfinder as a result of it isn’t attainable to tell apart pure white from virtually pure white.

The math is the one reality right here.

Related: Perfect Exposure With Every Shot

You should test the histogram, which is the graphical illustration of the pixels distributed within the picture, to see in case your picture comprises pure white pixels.

04. Bracket All Your Shots

Bracketing all of your winter pictures serves two predominant functions. First, it provides you a chance to pick the picture with the correct publicity when you miscalculated the publicity worth or in case your digicam was fooled by the brightness of the scene.

Related: Bracketing in Photography

Second, it permits you to use the HDR modifying approach in case the scene’s dynamic vary exceeds the dynamic vary of your digicam sensor. When you can’t seize your complete vary of sunshine in a single shot, you’ll be able to at all times mix the bracketed pictures into the HDR picture.

05. Use the Lens Hood

First, I at all times suggest maintaining the lens hood on always to guard the delicate and costly glass from unintentional injury. But, when capturing the snow, the lens hood can also be a really efficient device for decreasing the glare from the snow.

Winter Photography Tips: Editing

Editing snowy winter scenes has its personal distinctive difficulties and hurdles. The predominant problem is the predominance of 1 coloration (white), making most winter images monochromatic. Creative choices are extra restricted with snowy winter landscapes than colourful scenes of autumn landscapes.

I developed the Winter Colors Collection as a part of my Lightroom preset library. Each preset within the assortment was designed to beat the assorted challenges of modifying snowy landscapes and provide you with extra inventive potentialities to select from.

06. Remove Blue Color Cast

When you shoot sunny winter scenes with the open sky, it’s virtually assured that the snow may have an unnatural blue coloration forged within the shadowy areas. This is as a result of the scenes have two gentle sources: the daylight and the skylight. When they combine collectively, they produce pure gentle. But, within the shadowy areas, the daylight is shielded, making the skylight the principal gentle supply. As a end result, it shifts the pure gentle towards the blue spectrum.

The commonest technique to eradicate the blue coloration forged is to regulate the colour stability within the digicam earlier than capturing or later in post-processing. I’m not too keen on this feature as a result of, by shifting the colour stability towards hotter tones, you eradicate the blue coloration forged in shadow areas whereas additionally introducing a yellow forged in open areas that makes the snow yellowish.

My answer is to desaturate the blue colours within the {photograph} whereas boosting the opposite colours.

I’ve the Crisp Morning preset within the Winter Colors Collection that does precisely that.

07. Intentionally Introduce the Color Cast 

For inventive functions, attempt to introduce the colour forged to simulate the nice and cozy colours of the sundown—for instance, when the snow by no means seems to be pure white.

My Winter Colors Collection has three presets that introduce numerous coloration casts to pure winter scenes.

08. Revive Gloomy Overcast Scenes

On winter days when the 2 predominant sources of sunshine—the solar and the sky—are shielded by overcast clouds, the panorama tends to be at its most boring and bland with no trace of any colours. My answer is to be very aggressive with saturation and distinction. The objective is to revive any hidden colours and emphasize the snow’s texture and the ice.

I created the Snowflake preset particularly for overcast winter pictures. But, when you apply it to {a photograph} with a wide-open sky and a blue coloration forged, the end result will likely be horrendous.

09. Use Black & White Treatment

Because of the monochromatic nature of winter landscapes, it is rather efficient to make use of black and white conversion. This works with just about any snowy scene. You discard the colour data from the picture and focus on the tonal vary as a substitute. Using distinction and readability changes, you might be way more aggressive in your modifying.

10. Use Duotone Treatment

The duotone approach is once you introduce a second coloration to a black and white picture. The approach was extensively used in the course of the printing press period to save cash on manufacturing through the use of solely two colours as a substitute of 4. These days, the duotone approach is generally used for inventive functions.

Lightroom can simply obtain the duotone impact by changing a photograph to black and white after which introducing a second coloration utilizing the Split Toning device.

“Winter Colors”
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