Snow in the Pacific Northwest

[lizzy310]

TYPO...arghhh! You guys told me to post stuff, so here goes: I took these 2 years ago when we had 120 inches of snow in 4 weeks...a local record. I didn't know anything about all this then, and I know they are not that good, but it was fun. All taken with my Canon G10 P&S. (Dave, I spelled Canon right!) I took some and played with editing in paint...which is easy, but still not sure what I am doing. Comments and teaching welcome. Hopefully the next snow I will be able to use my new camera and do it more intelligently!

#1 Local farmer's field with the mountain peeking over the mist. No telephoto...sigh

#2 My mailbox...played with cropping by trying to make the windows interesting and made it b&w.

#3 Berries and snow...did nothing to this one.

#4 More berries...cropped, and played with all the effects. Not sure what they all mean yet.

#5 Cropped this and also played with the colors and brightness and such.

[FrankMi]

Hi Liz, it looks like you are doing what I did six months ago right after I got my DSLR. Going through older shots to see what I had. It really helped me to learn Photoshop and Lightroom as I tried to bring out the best in those older shots.

I really like the first shot. Have you thought of cropping it as a panorama (hopefully without loosing the mountain top)?

I also like #3 with the bright berries. Because each bunch has a cone-shaped mound of snow, I wonder if it might look uniquely 'interesting' upside-down?

[GeorgeM]

I'm learning right along with you, but I really like #1. Maybe you could crop it some, but where? Get rid of most of the sky? The foreground is interesting, with the stalks poking out of the snow. There's depth added to the picture by that. Decisions, decisions...
Anyway, nice pics!

[Dizzy]

Hi Liz,

Those are nice shots, (all of 'em!). I guess it's a matter of perspective, really, as when I see photo's of berries in the snow taken with a P&S it says you were looking to be creative, and just didn't have quite the right tools to do the job. Intent counts..

The first pic looked like a postcard, and hope it's OK, but I couldn't resist having
a play at it:



All modifications done in Lightroom 3, but I believe you could do much the same in the Elements program you have.

Changes:

• Cropped for effect

• Cloned out the big green thingy in the snow field

• Reduced the exposure by 2/3 of a stop

• Increased the Black levels

• Slightly increased Clarity, Vibrancy and Saturation

• Slightly sharpened, added a bit of Radius and Luminance

I'm still an absolute greenhorn at all this, and all told it as less than 5 min of effort.

Mike

[lizzy310]

Cool idea Frank. I will try that. Tomorrow...been sitting at my desk too long today. Thanks.

Hi Liz, it looks like you are doing what I did six months ago right after I got my DSLR. Going through older shots to see what I had. It really helped me to learn Photoshop and Lightroom as I tried to bring out the best in those older shots.

I really like the first shot. Have you thought of cropping it as a panorama (hopefully without loosing the mountain top)?

I also like #3 with the bright berries. Because each bunch has a cone-shaped mound of snow, I wonder if it might look uniquely 'interesting' upside-down?

[lizzy310]

WOW Mike...That looks awesome. I don't know what half that stuff means. I was playing with saturation, hues, RGB, and other stuff in the others. I need to update Elements and then take some online classes to learn it. I did this stuff on paint.net. I tried cloning a few places, but never got it right. I didn't know you can reduce the exposure post process. Thanks... I love what you did with this.

Hi Liz,

Those are nice shots, (all of 'em!). I guess it's a matter of perspective, really, as when I see photo's of berries in the snow taken with a P&S it says you were looking to be creative, and just didn't have quite the right tools to do the job. Intent counts..

The first pic looked like a postcard, and hope it's OK, but I couldn't resist having
a play at it:



All modifications done in Lightroom 3, but I believe you could do much the same in the Elements program you have.

Changes:

• Cropped for effect

• Cloned out the big green thingy in the snow field

• Reduced the exposure by 2/3 of a stop

• Increased the Black levels

• Slightly increased Clarity, Vibrancy and Saturation

• Slightly sharpened, added a bit of Radius and Luminance

Mike

[Dizzy]

WOW Mike...That looks awesome. I don't know what half that stuff means. I was playing with saturation, hues, RGB, and other stuff in the others. I need to update Elements and then take some online classes to learn it. I did this stuff on paint.net. I tried cloning a few places, but never got it right. I didn't know you can reduce the exposure post process. Thanks... I love what you did with this.

All I've done Liz is to look up the descriptions of the various modification tools on the Adobe
Help Pages, and then practice with them. Once you learn what each tool does, then you can
use each much more effectively. There's quite a bit in Lightroom I haven't even touched yet,
as I've honestly no idea at all what they do..

I think Frank had the best idea with the panorama suggestion. Give it a shot and see how
you do! (what's the worst that can happen?)

Mike

[Bobobird]

Lovely shots, 1 and 3 standout.
Liz, you are already half way there

[lizzy310]

Thank you Bobi Juan.. I hope I can do some like yours 1 day

Lovely shots, 1 and 3 standout.
Liz, you are already half way there

[Shadowman]

Hi Liz,

I like the 1st one and the berries. I am sure they are like magnets for the bears?

[Shadowman]

Hi Liz,

I like the 1st one and the berries. I am sure they are like magnets for the bears?

[FrankMi]

Hi Liz, I hope you don't mind. I had a few minutes so rather than crop, I thought I'd just compress the image down a bit from the top using Content-Aware Scale to keep the entire scene in perspective. Like Mike, I cloned out the green thingy as it's color, shape, and location just didn't seem to fit.

[lizzy310]

First...John I'm sure they would be a magnet for bears, but I took the photo in town. With the snow we had, there was no getting out to where the bears all were...and I think they were sleeping out there. Maybe I'll luck out and see a moose in town again when I have my new camera in hand.

I LOVE it Frank. I don't know how to do all that yet, so I really appreciate it. Was it Photoshop? I need to update my Elements and take some on line classes to learn it. It looks like a postcard. Summer is on it's way out again here, and I hope I can take some more photos in the snow this winter. Thanks for doing that. New camera is on the way, so I am very excited.

Hi Liz, I hope you don't mind. I had a few minutes so rather than crop, I thought I'd just compress the image down a bit from the top using Content-Aware Scale to keep the entire scene in perspective. Like Mike, I cloned out the green thingy as it's color, shape, and location just didn't seem to fit.

[Dizzy]

Hi Liz, I hope you don't mind. I had a few minutes so rather than crop, I thought I'd just compress the image down a bit from the top using Content-Aware Scale to keep the entire scene in perspective. Like Mike, I cloned out the green thingy as it's color, shape, and location just didn't seem to fit.

Frank....I like your version much, much better..soft and snowy looking, but sharp
where it's needed at the same time. Huge improvement over my effort.

Liz: When it comes to processing, I listen to Frank. If there was one, he's the of PP!

[lizzy310]

Ahhh..Master Yoda! I will surely be asking him stuff lots. Like I said I am going to update my Elements, and start video classes. I can use all my old photos to play with it.

Frank....I like your version much, much better..soft and snowy looking, but sharp
where it's needed at the same time. Huge improvement over my effort.

Liz: When it comes to processing, I listen to Frank. If there was one, he's the of PP!

[Loose Canon]

Okay, #1 looks like a stinking postcard. A wall hanger to be sure.

Beautiful set. Liz.

[FrankMi]

Ahhh..Master Yoda! I will surely be asking him stuff lots. Like I said I am going to update my Elements, and start video classes. I can use all my old photos to play with it.

Thank you for the kind words, Mike! Liz, see Mike's little green guy with the fat head? With all these complements, I've got to hold my swelled fat head up with both hands! LOL!

Actually, I've only been playing with Photoshop for about 4 months. I have a lot to learn and there are a number of much better post processing 'masters' here on CiC that I learn from on a regular basis. We can all learn here from the 'real' masters that have been doing this far longer than I. On the other hand, Liz, just look at how far you can progress in just a few months!

The Content-Aware Scale is a Photoshop feature, but Elements has a similar feature called Recompose. Here is a short video I found that will show you how to use the Recompose feature.

http://www.photoshop.com/tutorials/4803

The only real difference you will see in the video is that they are Recomposing (scaling) horizontally whereas for your image, I scaled vertically, but it works the same either way.

[FrankMi]

Hi Liz, I hope you don't mind. I wasn't able to get any shots today worth playing with in Photoshop so I thought about how your berries might look if they were upside-down. OK. A little strange, but just think of it as a berry sno-cone for bears?



If you think it is too outlandish, I can delete it and we'll just pretend it was a computer glytch!

[lizzy310]

ROFL!!! It makes it look like a woman with red curly hair...the twig on the left looks like an eye winking. She looks very playful and fun! You can fool around with my photos anytime.

Hi Liz, I hope you don't mind. I wasn't able to get any shots today worth playing with in Photoshop so I thought about how your berries might look if they were upside-down. OK. A little strange, but just think of it as a berry sno-cone for bears?



If you think it is too outlandish, I can delete it and we'll just pretend it was a computer glytch!