My brother and I decided to head for West Virginia’s Blackwater Falls after a weather report predicted 5 to 8 inches of snow. Hoping for a winter wonderland we set out. Unfortuneately by the time w e left, the forecast was down to 1 to 3 inches. With the lack of snowfall, none of our planned locations worked out. So as a last resort we just shot some icicles in Shay’s Run. At 9 hours roundtrip and $80 gas, I remarked to Ed, it was a long way to drive for a shot we probably could have gotten at home.
Oh the pain of the weather not cooperating. Here in the Northwest, my white whales are ocean sunsets; the marine layer kills the light right as it’s about to get good. Regardless, I love being out there so hopefully it was a great road trip otherwise.
Despite the “last resort,” this is a winner. Intimate ice shots have such beauty, and I love the vertical ice with the diagonal flow of the water. The water texture is perfect.
For me the ice is the star, and you might play with emphasizing it. The snow is very bright, and it tends to rob emphasis from the ice; you might play with reversing the two a little to bring the icicles out. Here’s an example below. (I also toned this slightly cool. That’s controversial and completely a personal taste thing, but I like what it does for ice. You mileage may vary…)
Hi @John_Williams, I like the adjustments you made to @Michael_Lowe 's photo to get the emphasis on the ice and off the snow. Did you do that with curves adjustment or another type of editing? I would like to learn. Thanks.
It’s better than flying somewhere out west for a photo trip and ending up with bluebird skies for a week. I’ve done that myself a few times…
With that said, I really like what you came away with here. The flow and texture of the water looks gorgeous, it has a wonderful luminous quality to it. I also lik ehow the various layers within hte image create a nice sense of depth. I also really like the tweaks made by @John_Williams in his rework, making those icicles pop was a great idea. This is a nice intimate scene Mike, almost an abstract even.
Hi @John_Williams . Thanks for the comment and taking the time for the rework. I agree with you 100% about the ice and snow. I actually did try to do what you mentioned, but I guess I didn’t go far enough. I’m kinda on the fence about the blue tone though. I also agree with @BenM in that I would like a quick rundown of your processing if possible. Thanks
I’m assuming you mean the luminosity changes, not the bluis caste? I did do that with curves in Photoshop. I selected the icicles and then added a curves layer, which turned my selection into a mask for the layer. (This crude selection isolates the curves layer histogram to the area of interest, which is a great way to tell where to place points on the curve.) I then adjusted the curve until I was happy with the icicles. The final step is to figure out how to blend the margins of your mask so you can’t see them. In this case it ended up being fairly simple, I just blurred the mask to soften its edges.
The two sections of icicles are a different luminosity, so I actually did that twice, once for the upper section and once for the lower. I did the snow the same way, but lowered the luminosity instead of increasing it.
If all of that is Greek, or you would like more details, I could add a thread in Discussions with screenshots; that tends to help a lot.
Mike, if you use TK Luminosity Masks, increasing the luminosity via a lights mask of the icicles is easy since they are surrounded by dark tones. If you are not a LM guy, then I would use Lightroom local adjustment tools such as the radial filter or adjustment brush in conjunction with the LR Luminance Range mask. You could increase, exposure, whites or highlights, and restrict it to the lighter tones in the ice via the Luminance Range mask.
Thank @John_Williams
I downloaded the image to have a go at lowering the emphasis on the snow and raising it on the ice. I tried using curves but I am not sure what I doing there so the results were poor. So instead I tried dodging and burning the respective areas locally and then adjusted the exposure a tiny bit.
If you do post a further description of using curves in a discussion I will definitely read it, but also I do not have photoshop yet so my current software may be a limitation.
Here is what I came up with from the dodge and burn…
Thanks for the workflow @John_Williams . Thanks @Ed_McGuirk for the input. Ed, I’ve actually had the TK luminosity panel since version 1 or whatever it was called. I should try including it more in my workflow.
Hey, this looks vaguely familiar, Mike. I was going to post mine, but you beat me to it. I am glad we came away with at least one image that we liked instead of getting totally skunked. The last two trips have not been very productive. My only suggestion was the already mentioned brightening those icicles a little and I think @John_Williams tweak took care of that rather nicely. I also like the diagonals here. This was a great consolation prize IMO.
Mike, I’ve been watching for icicles like this around Great Falls for a month with zero luck on 4 visits. The good news is that it’s only an hour round trip for me… The mix of long icicles and flowing water at the bottom look very good. The extra brightness helps.
I was going to post mine, but you beat me to it. I am glad we came away with at least one image that we liked instead of getting totally skunked. The last two trips have not been very productive. My only suggestion was the already mentioned brightening those icicles a little and I think 
The mix of long icicles and flowing water at the bottom look very good. The extra brightness helps.