I Love CS2

[amadjuster]

I took these this morning after an all night blow with snow. I used Auto WB and Program on my D200 and then used CS2 to sharpen, auto adjust, and shrink. I have found snow pictures are tricky on digital since the snow can sometimes come out the same as a gray card and under exposed. CS2 makes the snow look like it is supposed to look - white. Of course, that feeling slips away when you have to shovel the stuff. I also hope we don't lose the postman if the cornice falls off the roof.

[JohnT]

Here's a tip for shooting snow: Make your exposure at +2/3 EC. Of course, you can experiment with +1/2 and +1, but under a lot of conditions +2/3 works well.

We won't get that much snow here in the DFW area, but the weatherfolks are saying around one inch, which will be a nice dusting.

[Bartman01]

Agreed on the bump the exposure route. Underexposed photos (esp. with digital) means that you have thrown away a great deal of potential image data that can't be replaced. You can 'fix' it in post, but the image would have been better/more detailed/less noisy if you had gotten it right in-camera.

[mivy00]

Question....If he had bumped the exposure wouldnt it have completly blown out the snow?
Wouldnt it be better to expose for the snow then just correct the WB ?
Or underexpose to get the detail in the snow then raise the exposure if it is shot in raw.

[engstrom]

Originally Posted by mivy00

Question....If he had bumped the exposure wouldnt it have completly blown out the snow?
Wouldnt it be better to expose for the snow then just correct the WB ?
Or underexpose to get the detail in the snow then raise the exposure if it is shot in raw.

When there's so much snow in the picture the camera assumes that it should be 18% gray and will drop the exposure to accomplish that. You merely are compensating for the camera thinking the wrong thing so you bump up the exposure compensation and make the snow white instead of gray.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by mivy00

Question....If he had bumped the exposure wouldnt it have completly blown out the snow?
Wouldnt it be better to expose for the snow then just correct the WB ?
Or underexpose to get the detail in the snow then raise the exposure if it is shot in raw.

It isn't a WB issue; it's an exposure issue. A minor bump in exposure won't overexpose the snow but will brighten it since the camera will auto expose it as gray. You need to override that auto exposure. Too much EC will overexpose, however, causing a loss in detail. Sometimes, we're smarter than our cameras.

[amadjuster]

My shots on film went from gray and badly underexposed in early metering cameras to a better exposure in more recent versions, as my N70 and N90s. The vast amount of snow would also fool a light meter. It was worse when the sun was out and it was really bright. I am going to try the exposure correction method and post these unedited as soon as my feet thaw out. It is still 19 with a wind chill of minus something. To think, people pay tons of money to go to Aspen or Vail to experience what we get free. We use the money saved to help those folks from down south get out of the ditch. I am not talking about downhill skiing or snowboarding. I am talking about digging snow out from driveways, sidewalks, and trying to leave a stoplight without going into the ditch or spinning around. (We do not want to have people think we are from Houston.) It's also an experience to drive at night after the wet snow has frozen solid and when you cross these ridges, you sometimes leave your muffler and tail pipe behind. I love snow.

[amadjuster]

The first shot is an uncorrected jpg right out of the camera after factoring in a +.7 exposure. The second shot is with Auto Levels used. Although the corrected shots look better, the first shots look much closer to the actual view.

[Tim-in-TX]

Snow? What's snow? I don't think I will ever need to know how to shoot snow as I plan to never be anywhere close to snow. I hate cold....


But really, those are some really nice shots! Even though I probably will never shoot snow, I do know that it is a very tricky subject, but you did an excellent job (with a little help from CS2 of course).

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by mivy00

Question....If he had bumped the exposure wouldnt it have completly blown out the snow?
Wouldnt it be better to expose for the snow then just correct the WB ?
Or underexpose to get the detail in the snow then raise the exposure if it is shot in raw.

The camera's meter assumes that the average tonality of the scene is middle gray. Scenes that have an average tonality brighter than middle gray (such as snow) will generally come out underexposed. Bumping the exposure just fixes what the camera is already doing wrong. It doesn't 'blow out' the snow, it records it correctly. Even today's 'smart' meters can get foiled by this. How good a job your meter does, and how much correction is needed varies by camera and your intended results.

[RC-Aviator]

Originally Posted by amadjuster

(We do not want to have people think we are from Houston.)

Hey, I resemble that remark Besides, how are we to learn to drive in that stuff when its always gone by noon?
Nice pics though. Looks very COLD!

[Duffy Pratt]

The first image is a bit dark, but it has a bluish cast that is sometimes appropriate for snow. The autolevels brightens the picture, but it also sets the highlights to white, thus whitening all the snow. With a curve, you can get the best of both worlds: lightiening the picture while holding onto the blue. Here, I did a curve that pushed a little in the blue direction.

Duffy

[darktiger]

What's that white stuff????

[Daniel Bates]

I think it's cotton... they must have brought bales and bales of cotton in and spread it all around during the night.

[Duffy Pratt]

Actually, I've heard there's really bad, contagious dandruff going around.

Duffy