Which one do you prefer?

[Tawcan]

Need some opinions. Thanks!

Skiing into the land of the unknown

#1
http://tawcan.smugmug.com/photos/479761445_XRzPv-M.jpg

#2
http://tawcan.smugmug.com/photos/490419177_iR7s9-L.jpg

[Jim G]

Neither hugely strike me.... both look underexposed!

[js09]

Bottom one

[howaboutnow]

Second photo. The sky is noticable in the second one and looks more striking. In picture one all I saw was the person.

[hmcart]

the second

[Colorblinded]

Neither one stands out for me. They both have their own relative strengths. If you want to emphasize their surroundings the second one works better but if you want to have the viewer focus on the people and their trail I prefer the first one. Everything guides your eyes to the group in the distance, and the cropping off of the left end eliminates the rock outcropping which interrupts the visual flow if you trace the ridge with your eyes.

I agree they look underexposed, but it does look like they're in the shade so this might be "correct" as is.

[Nathan]

I like the second one... but I think I might like it more if the closest hiker was cloned out.

[S.Horton]

I think #2 is a slightly better composition.

Both need to be color-corrected.

[Tawcan]

Thanks for the replies.

I wanted to emphasis the greatness of nature with the skiers in the context. Having that in mind I think #2 would work better if I crop it a bit and clone out the closer skier?

In terms of pictures being under-exposed... there was a peak to the left of the pic so everything was in the shade. Doesn't seem right if the snow's "white" in this case. Also since it was a very sunny day there's a very strong blue tint presented on the snow.

S.Horton what do you mean by colour-corrected? Make it whiter?

[conkeroo]

Im gonna go with the first one as the placement of the individual elements makes it much more interesting, the convergence of the lines. Having said that, the wider landscape framing of number 2 takes in the mountains. A mix of the two would be spot on!! But I like them, there's something really nice about them. I'd defintely try some colour correction though.

[Erik G]

I like the second one better... It could be a little brighter, but I like it because with the addition of the mountain top in the backgound, It makes them appear that they really are in the middle of nowhere... with the first one, i feel like if the camera would pan a little to the left, there'd be a McDonalds..

[S.Horton]

Thanks for the replies.

I wanted to emphasis the greatness of nature with the skiers in the context. Having that in mind I think #2 would work better if I crop it a bit and clone out the closer skier?

In terms of pictures being under-exposed... there was a peak to the left of the pic so everything was in the shade. Doesn't seem right if the snow's "white" in this case. Also since it was a very sunny day there's a very strong blue tint presented on the snow.

S.Horton what do you mean by colour-corrected? Make it whiter?

When you ask that question, I don't think you've done that before -- So, let's start with a question -- What software are you using to post-process the photos?

And, here's a good link:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Bottom line, the photos I see have a distinct blue cast throughout. Once that's gone, I think that you'll notice an improvement.

That said, at the end of the day, it is up to you, the photographer, whether or not the color is pleasing.

[TooManyHobbies]

No.2

[Tawcan]

When you ask that question, I don't think you've done that before -- So, let's start with a question -- What software are you using to post-process the photos?

And, here's a good link:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

Bottom line, the photos I see have a distinct blue cast throughout. Once that's gone, I think that you'll notice an improvement.

That said, at the end of the day, it is up to you, the photographer, whether or not the color is pleasing.

I use LIghtroom & Photoshop and have done quite a bit of post-process. I think I get what you mean by "colour correction" in these two pics. However like I mentioned in my previous post, it was a very sunny day so there was a really strong blue cast on the snow. This is exactly what you'd see with your eyes.

I'll try play around with the colours later but it doesn't seem natural to have the snow to be all white. Perhaps someone could do a quick edit? :)

Keep the comments coming.

[S.Horton]

Ah, sorry -- Didn't know you knew.

Then in this photo I think you have two white balances going at the same time.

One for the sky, the other for the land.

I have shot scenes like this as well -- I end up with a layer to remove some of the blue from the snow.

Again, this is my work monitor, so I'm willing to be wrong!

BTW, they're nice captures.

[mullkv]

I'd go for no2 - I'd crop out the bottom part of the trail perhaps (the messy snow) so the bottom skier is nearer the foot of the image.

[Zoltan]

Might try this, Mask the sky and desaturate the blue in the snow.

[conkeroo]

I'd go for no2 - I'd crop out the bottom part of the trail perhaps (the messy snow) so the bottom skier is nearer the foot of the image.
I think the skier might be too near to the edge of the frame if you did that

Might try this, Mask the sky and desaturate the blue in the snow.
+1
Spot on!

[Apollo11]

#1 for me. The mountaintop is too close to the top of the frame in #2, IMO, so it looks better edited out. If there were more space, I might opt for it, but not with this edit.

Nice shot, though!

[Nathan]

Here's an idea what I might do if I had the RAW image to work with:

[Flo]

I love the blue cast myself..I have taken many snow shots, and in alot of them there was such a cast.but that makes it work to me;)

Stunning photos.

[McBride61]

I like #2 and as an avid snowboarding the color is correct as posted. For a photograph I would agree it should be less blue.

[Michael Vermont]

The panoramic is nicer, boost the exposure in PS though.

[Walczak Photo]

However like I mentioned in my previous post, it was a very sunny day so there was a really strong blue cast on the snow. This is exactly what you'd see with your eyes.


Before I comment on the pictures themselves, I wanted to address this particular issue as you are forgetting one very important thing about photography. What the camera "sees" and what most people see with the naked eye are two -very- different things. Most humans have this automatic white balance system built in called the "brain" that tends to automatically compensate for differences in color. Take a piece of plain white copy paper and go look at it outside in bright sunlight...it looks white. Look at it in shade and it still looks white. Now take that same piece of paper indoors and look at it under incandescent lighting...it still looks white does it not? It isn't...now it's actually a reddish orange. Go look at that same piece of paper under fluorescent lighting...it still looks white but now it's actually a blueish green. We humans are very easily tricked by our senses...when we see something like snow for example that we -know- is supposed to be white, we expect to see it as -white- and not blue. You images here may be a perfect representation of the actual color of the scene, but that's not the way most people are going to expect to see snow. A little bit of a bluish tint is fine and will give the impression of "cool" or "cold" but what you have here looks really out of balance to most people because of our perception. The fact that these shots look under exposed doesn't help this situation either...they may have been perfectly exposed on your camera and according to a light meter but again there's that human perception that snow is bright white and not a darkish blue. This is another reason why I always say it's the photographer who takes the images and not the equipment...a good photographer should understand how most people are going to "see" the images...and that's not always an exact representation of a given scene.

This is as always just my opinion but personally I almost never try to get colors to "precisely reflect a given scene"...color is again a very subjective thing based on human perception. Personally I try to make things look natural and that's not always reflective of reality.

Now as to your images here, I'm also in the "neither really grabs me" crowd. The only difference I see between the first and second shots is that in the first shot you've cropped out a portion of the left side of the shot with the rocks. Yes, it does put the person in the foreground more into the left hand third but other than that, it doesn't make that big of a difference. To me it looks like you were trying to capture "the grandeur of nature" and how people are so small in comparison but to me what you have ended up with is two separate points of interest...the mountain scene and the tiny people. The people in the background really look like little more than dust specs on your sensor or dirt on your lens...they don't add anything significant to the shot and there's really no point in having them there. Also without knowing the actual shooting conditions here, I also think that this could have been taken from a slightly different angle. Had you of moved more to your right and had the rocks in that summit there more directly above the single person in the foreground and shot this as a portrait instead of a landscape, I think this would have worked much better.

I'm honestly not trying to be rude here (my typical disclaimer) but honestly to me these really don't look like much more than under exposed, blue snap-shots of someone's hiking trip thru a frozen tundra...nothing particularly impressive about them.

Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear but it's just my $.02,
Jim

[jhkphoto]

I say #1 is a very good photograph.

[conkeroo]

Ive already said I like the shots but here's my take on the editing. :)
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif