Benz World Blog » Winter

Freezing Fog

Jason Benz — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 04:08:00 +0000

This was the result of the freezing fog we had on Wednesday. There is still snow on the ground here in the UK and more is forecast today. To increase the sparkle a Fractalius layers was added to this image using “luminosity” and “soft light” blend modes. Some Split toning was added in Camera RAW.

First Snow

Jason Benz — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:30:30 +0000

This is Karen exploring Gonerby in the UK as we witnessed the first serious layer of snow arriving today.

Festive Frost

Jason Benz — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:24:21 +0000

I am still waiting to see my first snow this winter. This festive frost is from the village of Wyville in the UK.

Winters Day

Jason Benz — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:46:35 +0000

Seasons Greetings. I think a festive post is long overdue. The weather in the UK has been full of mist and frost recently but we have yet to get the photogenic layer of thick snow. This is the village of Wyville which was the location of today’s walk.

Rutland Snow

Jason Benz — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:12:19 +0000

We went for a drive today and shot this snow shot on the south shore of Rutland Water. I built up the image in two stages. First I used Photomatix to make an HDR image.

Next I used the Black and White adjustments panel in Photoshop to change the tone brightness of each colour.

Finally I used a levels layer to get the tones right on the final image.

Cutts Close

Jason Benz — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:02:49 +0000

Karen took this picture in Rutland. Snow is a tricky thing for cameras. The problem is left to themselves they often turn snow grey. This is due to the auto exposure trying to balance the tones in an image. Unless you remember to overexpose you may need to do a bit of work in Photoshop later to make the snow look like snow. I used levels to retouch this image. The upper layers darken the sky slightly in the same way you might use a Graduated Filter. The third levels layer brightens the snow without losing detail in highlights.

Tree Sun

Jason Benz — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:47:22 +0000

This silhouette of a tree in front of the sunset was on the north shore of Rutland Water. It was processed with Photomatix to produce two HDR images. I loaded these and an unprocessed image into three layers in photoshop. As all three layers are very different it is possible to get some extreme results from changing the blending modes.

Snow Scene

Jason Benz — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:47:22 +0000

This is the North shore of Rutland Water after the snow. I’ve shot this path from another angle here. The panel below shows how I have digitally developed this image in Photoshop. The Levels and Curves layers affect the whole image. The other two layers have masks applied. The Colour Balance layer only affects the ground and the Hue/Saturation layer only affects the sky.

Snow World

Jason Benz — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:49:16 +0000

Today I got on my bike to capture some of this crazy weather we have been experiencing. Cycling up and down icy hills is not for the faint-hearted This planet was taken in a field in Hambleton which is the peninsula in the centre of Rutland Water. How to make your own planet.

Austria Panorama

Jason Benz — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:55:21 +0000

I took this on a family holiday to Austria in 2008. This Panorama was created from three wide angle shots. I used various blending modes to build up the image.