I took this shot in Kirkenes, Norway on 4 January 2024. It was around 11:30am but polar light, so the sun was below the horizon. The colours in the sky were stunning and there was snow on the ground. The low light meant the ISO had to creep up as I had no tripod. I’m struggling to process my images (I’m a Darktable user) as I really want to bring out the colours in the “sunset” but also maintain the white of the snow. In addition, this shot has some sea mist!
I would love to see what this community can do with this.
Not reflected in the .arp file is that the color level was cranked all the way up and the image was given a blue/magenta tint. (This is from my Frankencode version.)
I prefer the images with the cooler tones here, but I tried to imagine white snow and sunset colors when processing this image. P1040481.ORF.xmp (17.6 KB)
Am experimenting with the enhanced CAL (CAM16) module in Rawtherapee. This is what I came up with. With some assistance with Retinex and the graduated filter to darken the sky
My play in GIMP.
I didn’t attempt to make the snow white - I believe it should reflect the light source which illuminates it. I increased the saturation in the low and medium saturation parts and a small increase in overall contrast.
I don’t think you should over correct and attempt to make the snow “white” as it won’t look natural. The snow will reflect the ambient colour of the sky; if the sky above and around you is blue, then a slight blue cast will be on the snow. The same applies on a white sandy beach on a cloudless day with blue sky: the sand receiving full sun should render naturally as white’ish’ sand assuming your camera is set as intended for daylight conditions, however, at the same time, close inspection of the shadow areas will likely reveal sand with a blue cast that in terms of photo/cinema lighting filters may resemble" half CTB or quarter CTB". Therefore if recreating full sun at the beach in the studio, using CTB filters on the fill lights makes the scene appear incredibly realistic. To complicate matters our eyes adjust to colours whereas our film and sensors have their own characteristics on interpreting colour.
