Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

[Before we move on to our final city - Berlin - I want to post an interlude that, if I wait until after the final day of our Central European Trip, will no longer be timely] 😊

Snow-covered Boardwalk - Price Nature Center - Saginaw, Michigan
Copyright Andy Richards 2009 - All Rights Reserved

IT IS Winter. In much of the U.S., that means snow. Not for me, though. Here in Florida, snow is an almost unheard of novelty (though try to tell that to those folks who have places in the panhandle). I have often lamented that I don't have a very good winter scene portfolio. No real fault by my own. Between Michigan and Vermont, I sure had enough time to do it. But I didn't. These days, I will have to travel if I want snow scenes. Maybe I will some day. 😐 Until then, I will have to enjoy the snow imagery vicariously. Fortunately, online I get the opportunity to see a fair amount of it. Some from people I know in Vermont, Michigan, Massachusets and Utah.

There is another color that I think is also very unattractive on snow: blue

I REMEMBER eating fresh snow when I was a kid. In Vermont, they used packed fresh snow to make a delicacy they call "sugar on snow." It is wonderful - at least if you like Maple Syrup. So I can confirm that it is o.k. to eat snow. But, my parents cautioned: "yes, it is o.k. to eat snow. Just don't eat the yellow snow." We basically know where that came from. It isn't an attractive color on snow.

Correcting a Blue Color Cast
Copyright Andy Richards 2009 - All Rights Reserved

THERE IS another color that I think is also very unattractive on snow: blue. The next time you see an image with an expanse of snow, look at it very carefully. Is that snow really white? I'll bet that in many instances it isn't. It is really blue (or bluish, with a blue color cast on the white snow).  Once you actually realize that, it just doesn't look right. But our eyes are amazing tools. So is our brain. Together, they tell you that blue snow is white. It is supposed to be white and our brain knows that. But guess what. The camera doesn't know that! In many conditions, the color will record and your screen will render that nice white snow with a (sometimes very strong) blue color cast. If the sky is very blue, it will be a brighter, more satuirated blue cast. If there is dark sky, it will often render a less saturated, darker blue.

OF COURSE, sometimes blue is a natural occurence. Like late afternoon, early morning, and twilight. Shadows in a photograph can also appear blue. Sometimes the right thing to do is just leave that alone. But a broad expanse of white snow is just different. Today's digital sensors (more than any other color cast I know of) have a strong tendency to record snow with a blue cast. I think it is more prevalent than most of the old film emulsions from the days of yore. But also unlike film, with digital recordings we have a chance to correct that.

Snow is white

ASK ANY elementary school student: "what color is snow?" White. Of course. Snow is white. It is supposed to be white. As a very reflective, white surface it will also pick (all) color casts more easily than any other surface. That means sky or shadows will always influence the snow; usually creating a blue cast.

THERE SEVERAL options for dealing with this. One is to do a white balance adjustment for the conditions in camera before the shot. In fact, if you are shooting in jpeg or tiff format, you really need to do this. I find this to be a PIA. It is just one more thing you need to do pre-shot, and in some instances may even mean not catching that precise moment when lighting, action, or other conditions are optimal. If you record your images in raw format (something I have long been a cheerleader for), you don't really need to mess with white balance in the camera because you can always make (and change) the white balance setting in your raw conversions software. If your entire image has a color cast, adjusting the white balance in post- processing will probably be the quickest and easiest "fix." What I often see, though are images where other elements are fine, but the snow has a major color cast. In the illustration image, the entire image had a bit of a blue cast and I was able to fix it by simply adjusting the white balance slider in my raw conversion software (I use Adobe Camera Raw). As I have noted, my snow scenes portfolio is a bit weak, and I haven't been able to find a better example of where we would need to selectively adjust the cast. Just slightly more fiddly, the "targeted" fix is also pretty easy.

USING YOUR preferred processing software, select the snow (using any selection method that works for you and the circumstances), and make three color adjustments. First, desaturate it. I usually desaturate anywhere from 85 - 95%. You don't want to go too far, especially in the shadow areas of an image. Second, look carefully at the contrast and if appropriate, adjust the contrast. Subtly. My contrast adjustments are usually between 5 and 15%. Not every image needs the contrast adjustment. Most do. Third, adjust the image brightness. Generally it will be a positive brightness adjustment with snow (in my experience, somewhere between 2 - 5%. Your experience may vary. You don't have to do these adjustments in any particular order, and making one may prompt you to go back and adjust the others. Do what looks good to your eye). The difference will amaze you. This also works for clouds, fog and white water, by the way. I personally use the NIK Viveza2 plugin for making this kind of adjustment most of the time. But it can also be done using selections, masks, and the software's native adjustment tools.

Snow-covered Boardwalk - Price Nature Center - Saginaw, Michigan
Copyright Andy Richards 2009 - All Rights Reserved