Icy Lake Huron

[PixelRabbit]

This is the first shot processed from our outing today. The dark line at the horizon is where the open water starts. I'm a little iffy on the crop, I'm 99% sure the horizon is straight but it still feels crooked... ish... maybe?
Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks for taking a look!

 

[Rick58]

Very nice Pix. It looks cold, quiet and peaceful. Those few strands of grass on the right are a little distracting.

 

[Ysarex89 83]

I like it. Wish I was there.

The horizon is very very close, but not perfect. My question is do you want it that blue? I can see that the blue goes with the cold, but if you assume the snow was white you get a very different result and it unmasks some color in the sky. I also made a Levels change that raised the contrast (and drama) quite a bit. See what you think -- it's a big change.

Joe

 

[PropilotBW]

I like both OP and EDIT. Nice edit Ysarex.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks Rick and Propilot!

Joe.... oh my gosh, I love your edit. You know when you start editing something and you get lost down a pathway (this time it was the blue hue) and you forget where you came from? This is one of those cases. Your edit is very true to what it looked like there, with a little added contrast that I couldn't seem to get right. I'm going to say I like your edit better than mine and definitely keep it in mind when I'm editing the rest from the day. Editing continues to be my Achilles heel! I have some more waterscapes that I tried to edit last night and I'm just not getting them, I'm going to start over today and try again.

 

[Ysarex89 83]

Thanks Rick and Propilot!

Joe.... oh my gosh, I love your edit. You know when you start editing something and you get lost down a pathway (this time it was the blue hue) and you forget where you came from? This is one of those cases. Your edit is very true to what it looked like there, with a little added contrast that I couldn't seem to get right. I'm going to say I like your edit better than mine and definitely keep it in mind when I'm editing the rest from the day. Editing continues to be my Achilles heel! I have some more waterscapes that I tried to edit last night and I'm just not getting them, I'm going to start over today and try again.

Glad I could help. Here's what I did:

I wanted to set a white point using the snow on the right side shore so I opened the photo in ACR and used the white point eyedropper to do that. Then straight to Photoshop where I rotated the photo 1/3 of a degree clockwise. I took Rick's suggestion and cloned out the grass and stuff. Then I looked at the histogram which was compressed with nothing in the photo anywhere near black. I opened Levels and made a pretty big change there pulling in the end points. This raises the contrast and also the color saturation. It brought out the color in the sky but also showed a green tint in the clouds. So as a final step I placed a selection over the sky and used Photoshop's Selective Color dialog to tone down that green.

Lake Huron is the jewel of the great lakes -- one of my favorite places. That's a very nice photo.

Joe

 

[squirrels]

Ooo! I'll stare at this one instead of your eagle pic.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks Rick and Propilot!

Joe.... oh my gosh, I love your edit. You know when you start editing something and you get lost down a pathway (this time it was the blue hue) and you forget where you came from? This is one of those cases. Your edit is very true to what it looked like there, with a little added contrast that I couldn't seem to get right. I'm going to say I like your edit better than mine and definitely keep it in mind when I'm editing the rest from the day. Editing continues to be my Achilles heel! I have some more waterscapes that I tried to edit last night and I'm just not getting them, I'm going to start over today and try again.

Glad I could help. Here's what I did:

I wanted to set a white point using the snow on the right side shore so I opened the photo in ACR and used the white point eyedropper to do that. Then straight to Photoshop where I rotated the photo 1/3 of a degree clockwise. I took Rick's suggestion and cloned out the grass and stuff. Then I looked at the histogram which was compressed with nothing in the photo anywhere near black. I opened Levels and made a pretty big change there pulling in the end points. This raises the contrast and also the color saturation. It brought out the color in the sky but also showed a green tint in the clouds. So as a final step I placed a selection over the sky and used Photoshop's Selective Color dialog to tone down that green.

Lake Huron is the jewel of the great lakes -- one of my favorite places. That's a very nice photo.

Joe

Thank you! I just finished using what you did as a guideline editing a couple more shots, I'm going to post them together in another thread instead of tagging them on here
I love the lake too, it has so many faces, when we are at the cottage I could sit and watch it all day long.

Ooo! I'll stare at this one instead of your eagle pic.

Haha good! I'm glad you like it

 

[Alex_B]

I really like that one ... and I like it that blue! While the edit looks a bit more neutral in colour, the blue gives this the right mood for the temperature.

The horizon is slightly tilted though.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Hey Alex, thanks! The longer I sit on these the more I like both versions
Yeah it is off a little bit, I thought I got it straight but alas I was only close

 

[Luke345678]

This is a beautiful shot.

I love the silky look to the water.

 

[Ulriksen]

I like the nuances of blue against the white.

 

[invisible]

I like both versions. If pressed, I'd take the original because I agree with Alex about the blue tone and mood.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks guys!

 

[BlackSheep]

I like both versions. If pressed, I'd take the original because I agree with Alex about the blue tone and mood.

+1
Very nice shot!