Co. snowfall-Help

[chauncey]

First snow of the season at my retreat.

Can anyone explain how to make it more dramatic?

[Travisj]

For me it would be hard and I only say that because of all of the shadows. To me it really makes everything run together and it makes it really busy. I think your light might have been a little too harsh. You might be able to try some different crop's to see if any work for you. Sorry this wasn't much help.

[Robert_Lay]

I think this scene may be an ideal candidate for HDR. Almost 10% of your pixels are stacked up at level 0 and almost 20% are stacked up in the realm of 0 - 2. That's too much wasted information with no place to go. The old masters would have played with exotic combinations of developer and development time in order to get that detail into the print. In the digital world we can shoot RAW and/or use HDR techniques.

Your composition and interest are good - did you shoot in RAW?

Very nice!

[chauncey]

Robert- it was shot in RAW and converted in CS3. I just haven't figured out how to create that dramatic effect.

I suppose that I could do a pseudo HDR but I was hoping to avoid that.

[chauncey]

here is a pseudo HDR-got to say I don't like it as much

[Robert_Lay]

Pseudo HDR is not defined too well, but I guess you mean that it's done with only one original image file. I would say that in this case the one file just isn't enough to get the shadow detail needed. Without having the original RAW file to work with, it is difficult to know what can be done with it. In previous problems like this, I have over-estimated what can be done from one file. However, other workers have done wonders with simpler methods of blending two image files.

In this case, the bottom line is that 15% of the total pixel count is sitting on value zero (even worse than the original post) - so the additional processing done on this latest rendition was not able to improve shadow detail significantly.

[chauncey]

I think that I understand what you are saying and will play with it some more.

thanks for input Robert!!

[daduls]

I think you might be able to make the photo a little more dramatic by getting a little closer to nature.

Bring a blanket and lie on the ground, maybe in the corner where the road meets the piled up snow. If you can you could also try opening up your lens so your photo starts oof.

If you lie in the snow long enough your creative juices will flow.

Just a couple of thoughts.