How Yellow Should Snow Look When It's Sunny?

[PGH423]

I take a lot of pictures during and after snowfall and Lightroom's temperature auto correct always thinks the picture should be much warmer. I'm looking for feedback on what you think is the most accurate/best temperature for these images. As is often the case with snowfall pictures, the color temperature in none of my edits feels exactly right.

Here is the original, unedited image:





Here it is after all my basic edits and auto adjust to temperature (which indicated +23 warmth, -7 tint).





Here is a middle ground temperature (+14, -4)

 

[Leswick II]

Just as an observer....not sure where the right point is, but probably somewhere between the last and first shot. Sorry, but the middle one looks as if someone peed on it = yellow snow. :>) The first one looks bit stark to me.

 

[FingerPainter]

Frank Zappa had a few things to say about yellow snow - generally not good.

Clean snow is not at all yellow. In bright sunlight like in this image, it should look ever so slightly bluish.

The unedited version is best.

 

[bjn70]

I agree on both counts-

1. "Don't you eat that yellow snow..."

2. Snow should not be yellow, should be relatively pure white.

 

[FrancoD]

I don't think I have ever seen yellow snow during the day .

With a touch of blue or gray , yes, but yellow no.

Mind you , I have seen it with a reddish coat , but that was sand from the Sahara . (Italian Alps)

 

[BBbuilder467]

I take a lot of pictures during and after snowfall and Lightroom's temperature auto correct always thinks the picture should be much warmer. I'm looking for feedback on what you think is the most accurate/best temperature for these images. As is often the case with snowfall pictures, the color temperature in none of my edits feels exactly right.

Here is the original, unedited image:



Here it is after all my basic edits and auto adjust to temperature (which indicated +23 warmth, -7 tint).



Here is a middle ground temperature (+14, -4)

The first looks the most natural based on the blue sky. What hangs in trees is often more ice than snow. It looks a little different than just snow.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Auto white balance is not necessarily accurate: it can’t be, actually, until some intelligence is added.

--

The Refracted Light

A website about the Art and Science of Photography

therefractedlight.blogspot.com

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Depends on where the sun is and how cloudy it is. The blue sky gets reflected in the snow so it's natural for the snow to have a blueish tint if the sky above is blue and there's no direct sunlight (especially in the shadows).

So your first and third versions look good and the second doesn't. I'd tweak the WB to somewhere in between the #1 and #3.

 

[PhotoTeach2]

I take a lot of pictures during and after snowfall and Lightroom's temperature auto correct always thinks the picture should be much warmer. I'm looking for feedback on what you think is the most accurate/best temperature for these images. As is often the case with snowfall pictures, the color temperature in none of my edits feels exactly right.

Here is the original, unedited image:



Here it is after all my basic edits and auto adjust to temperature (which indicated +23 warmth, -7 tint).



Here is a middle ground temperature (+14, -4)

My vote is absolutely on the top/un-edited one ...

 

[Graham Meale]

The original (first) is fine. The only time snow might be yellow is during a yellow sunrise/set, perhaps not even then.

 

[Gerry Winterbourne]

I take a lot of pictures during and after snowfall and Lightroom's temperature auto correct always thinks the picture should be much warmer.

I've never found a picture where I agree with LR/ACR's auto settings.

I'm looking for feedback on what you think is the most accurate/best temperature for these images. As is often the case with snowfall pictures, the color temperature in none of my edits feels exactly right.

The temperature is slightly different at left and right, probably because of the angle of the sun. I think the best compromise between the two sides is +4, +10. I'm surprised that tint is moved towards greens in auto and your edit. The original looks much closer to any snow scene I've seen than either of those.

Here is the original, unedited image:



Here it is after all my basic edits and auto adjust to temperature (which indicated +23 warmth, -7 tint).



Here is a middle ground temperature (+14, -4)

--
---
Gerry
________________________________________________________________________
I'm happy for anyone to edit any of my photos and display the results
_________________________________________________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006

Galleries by Gerry Winterbourne

www.pbase.com

[email protected]

 

[D Cox]

Frank Zappa had a few things to say about yellow snow - generally not good.

Clean snow is not at all yellow. In bright sunlight like in this image, it should look ever so slightly bluish.

The unedited version is best.

The scene is lit by two lights: direct sunlight and skylight.

Winter sunlight is warm in colour -- orange rather than yellow. It is not the same colour as mid-day summer sunlight. So to be "accurate", the sunlit areas should be warm in colour.

Light from a blue sky is of course blue, so to be accurate the shadows should be blue.

But as with all these white balance problems, the best thing is to play around with the sliders, and possibly the blue channel curve, until you like the look of it on your monitor.

Don Cox

 

[D Cox]

The original (first) is fine. The only time snow might be yellow is during a yellow sunrise/set, perhaps not even then.

Winter sunlight is orange or yellow even at mid day. Your vision adapts, so it may well look white.

The nearer the Sun is to the horizon, the more air the light from it passes through before it hits the ground. Molecules in the air scatter blue light so that when the sunlight reaches the ground it has lost some, or even most, of its blue content.

The blue of the sky is light that has been scattered out of the direct path of rays from the Sun which would otherwise have passed by overhead.



On the Moon, there is no air to scatter the sunlight, so the sky and the shadows are black rather than blue.







Don Cox

 

[PGH423]

I take a lot of pictures during and after snowfall and Lightroom's temperature auto correct always thinks the picture should be much warmer.

I've never found a picture where I agree with LR/ACR's auto settings.

I'm looking for feedback on what you think is the most accurate/best temperature for these images. As is often the case with snowfall pictures, the color temperature in none of my edits feels exactly right.

The temperature is slightly different at left and right, probably because of the angle of the sun. I think the best compromise between the two sides is +4, +10. I'm surprised that tint is moved towards greens in auto and your edit. The original looks much closer to any snow scene I've seen than either of those.

Here is the original, unedited image:



Here it is after all my basic edits and auto adjust to temperature (which indicated +23 warmth, -7 tint).



Here is a middle ground temperature (+14, -4)

--
---
Gerry
________________________________________________________________________
I'm happy for anyone to edit any of my photos and display the results
_________________________________________________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006
http://www.pbase.com/gerrywinterbourne
[email protected]

Well, there is a wide range of views, although everyone seems to think the auto adjustment looks horrible. I’m going to play around some more and probably post a few more versions. This gives me a lot to think about.



BTW, this is atop Laurel Ridge in Pennsylvania, a mountain area that gets about 12 feet of snowfall per year and has four ski resorts.

Gerry, good point about the left and right sides having different temperatures. I’m not sure, though, do you mean that the warmth should be adjusted +10 in the right and +4 in the left, or do you mean that for the whole picture the warmth should be adjusted +4 and the tint +10?

 

[ken_in_nh]

You should adjust to whatever you like. There's no "right" answer, since ultimately, this is a personal decision.

Why make it complicated?

 

[Quarkcharmed]

You should adjust to whatever you like. There's no "right" answer, since ultimately, this is a personal decision.

Why make it complicated?

The OP asked about 'accurate' WB, so there is right answer, or at least a certain range where setting the temperature slider feels accurate.

 

[PGH423]

You should adjust to whatever you like. There's no "right" answer, since ultimately, this is a personal decision.

Why make it complicated?

The OP asked about 'accurate' WB, so there is right answer, or at least a certain range where setting the temperature slider feels accurate.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

Well, there is a wide range of views, although everyone seems to think the auto adjustment looks horrible. I’m going to play around some more and probably post a few more versions. This gives me a lot to think about.

BTW, this is atop Laurel Ridge in Pennsylvania, a mountain area that gets about 12 feet of snowfall per year and has four ski resorts.

Gerry, good point about the left and right sides having different temperatures. I’m not sure, though, do you mean that the warmth should be adjusted +10 in the right and +4 in the left, or do you mean that for the whole picture the warmth should be adjusted +4 and the tint +10?

Achieving white balance, by definition, is where the color of the light source itself is subtracted from the image, so the final image appears as though it was photographed under white light. So a subject that is objectively neutral (that is, it reflects all visible frequencies of light equally) is white balanced when it is also objectively neutral in the final image (that is, the red, green, and blue color values are all equal).

The easiest way to obtain a white balance is by using the white balance eyedropper and clicking on a neutral object, such as snow. Auto white balance is unable to do this because it doesn't know what objects are supposed to be neutral; it doesn't know that snow is white, and it doesn't know what snow looks like anyway.

However, this process only works really well under controlled lighting conditions. When shooting in full sunlight, you have a bright yellowish and hard light source, and the rest of the entire scene is illumined by a large blue softbox, so there will always be a color cast difference in highlights and shadows between yellow and blue. Yeah, it's totally ok that the sun will throw a yellowish light and that objects in the shade will look blue.

In *this* situation, all you need to do is use the Daylight white balance preset (assuming you are shooting raw). Or shoot JPEGs with the Daylight white balance. However, this Daylight is typically calibrated for mid-day in mid-summer, at mid-latitudes, so some adjustment may be needed.

What I would do is click the white balance eyedropper on snow that is directly lit by the sun, and then maybe adjust the color temperature slider a bit towards yellow or blue to taste, but only adjust it by a tiny amount. I would let my eyes rest a bit before evaluating the final color of the image.

 

[PGH423]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm not sure how "accurate" this edit is, but I really want the viewer to "feel" the sun hitting the snow (without going overboard). Sun, usually makes people think warmth, and I want that warm feeling and the contrasting cold snow to be apparent. So, I went with a WB of +3, -1 and then adjusted RGB under Calibration and the blue channel curve. So, I ended up with this. Thanks for the help!

 

[FingerPainter]

Frank Zappa had a few things to say about yellow snow - generally not good.

Clean snow is not at all yellow. In bright sunlight like in this image, it should look ever so slightly bluish.

The unedited version is best.

The scene is lit by two lights: direct sunlight and skylight.

Winter sunlight is warm in colour -- orange rather than yellow.

So you are saying that midday sun in winter is about 3,000 degrees K? If so, I don' t think you are correct. If you've got any references to back that up, I'd appreciate seeing them.

It is not the same colour as mid-day summer sunlight.

Sure, it is closer to the yellow end of the spectrum than is summer sunlight, but not so much closer as to be orange, and not even what I'd call ."yellow".

Also, what latitude are you talking about? Colour temperature is affected by the angle of the sunlight, which varies with latitude. OP is probably > 10 degrees latitudes south of your position.

So to be "accurate", the sunlit areas should be warm in colour.

What is the highest colour temperature you would call "warm"?

Light from a blue sky is of course blue, so to be accurate the shadows should be blue.

But as with all these white balance problems, the best thing is to play around with the sliders, and possibly the blue channel curve, until you like the look of it on your monitor.

Don Cox