I will share in this post some of my tips to get perfect snow pictures. I will also share my favorite presets on Photoshop to get a flawless finish! Let's start:
- 1st always over-expose you photos when snowing (if the sky is clear and blue maybe you won't need to over-expose). If you shoot on DSLR (or any camera that have semi-automatic mode aperture or shutter speed priority) 1 stop or more of exposition will make your whites pop. Don't forget that your camera will always try to get a mean of pixels that is gray, so when you shoot a white scene all will look gray and dull because your camera will think that all those white pixels have to be gray!
- Automatic white balance is the best choice to make! And you can correct it anyway in post production.
Raw photo
- In post production (Photoshop, GIMP, etc.) push the whites up!
After putting up the whites and contrasts
- Apply presets (mine are available here)
A gradient map & a color lookup are applied
- Add on a little snow if you want (you can make you own snow brush -> a link to a great tutorial here)
Final image
And there you have a perfect photo of a snow landscape or portrait if you are more into portrait!
Take care, Lorrie