Lightroom 5.7 Development Question: I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color...

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color module (in Development) in Lightroom 5.7 . I simply moved the Blue saturation slider to -50. But in doing this, I lost my blue sky. It became noticeably gray. Hardly any blue tint at all.

How can maintain the original blue sky and still reduce the obvious blue tint to the snow bank shadows??
Thanks for any advice.

-FiddleMaker

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

FiddleMaker wrote:

I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color module (in Development) in Lightroom 5.7 . I simply moved the Blue saturation slider to -50. But in doing this, I lost my blue sky. It became noticeably gray. Hardly any blue tint at all.

How can maintain the original blue sky and still reduce the obvious blue tint to the snow bank shadows??
Thanks for any advice.

-FiddleMaker

Try adjust the White Balance slider.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

FiddleMaker wrote:

I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color module (in Development) in Lightroom 5.7 . I simply moved the Blue saturation slider to -50. But in doing this, I lost my blue sky. It became noticeably gray. Hardly any blue tint at all.

How can maintain the original blue sky and still reduce the obvious blue tint to the snow bank shadows??
Thanks for any advice.

-FiddleMaker

You can't. this is where LR ends and a Layers program begins. (Photoshop, Elements, Paint shop Pro, GIMP etc.)

The nearest I have got is to increase the exposure in the sky using the brush and this does bring back a little blue but not as much as I would wish.

IN LR 6 I am trying to develop a technique for this kind of thing using the built in HDR, but so far unsuccessfully.

jaydherold Loc: Groveport, Ohio

Try making a mask of what you want to change and apply the corrections only to the masked area.
If you search YouTube for Helen Bradley you will find some really good tutorials for Lightroom.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Indi wrote:

Try adjust the White Balance slider.

Indi, I will try this however Searcher just replied and indicated this cannot be done in Lr 5.7. So, I may need to buy Elements 13. I have many photos that pose this problem. -FiddleMaker

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

jaydherold wrote:

Try making a mask of what you want to change and apply the corrections only to the masked area.
If you search YouTube for Helen Bradley you will find some really good tutorials for Lightroom.

jaydherold, this is certainly worth a try. Will view Helen Bradley's tutorial.
-FiddleMaker

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

jaydherold wrote:

Try making a mask of what you want to change and apply the corrections only to the masked area.
If you search YouTube for Helen Bradley you will find some really good tutorials for Lightroom.

The masking only applies to the brush, Graduate Filter and Radial filter. None of these contain colour specific controls. If a colour is toned down in the Colour control areas, the local changes can only alter the density/contrast of the remaining colours.

It is possible to add blue by using the brush but it is difficult to get it right at the edges. If no other software is available, it can be worth a try.

Select the colour at the bottom of the brush panel by clicking on the rectangle, then choose the hue and saturation required. Switch masking off when covering a large area, on when close to different colours/shapes.

The real problem comes if there is a tree or similar with small patches of light showing through, dabbing with a very tiny brush might help.

Elliott Design Loc: West Tennessee

Use the graduated filter and drag from the bottom of the photo up to the skyline, then you can use the temperature slider to remove some blue from the masked snow area, or click on the color button in the graduated filter panel and use the eye dropper to choose blue and change it's intensity or saturation without changing the sky. Or, adjust the image first to make the snow look right, then use a graduated mask over the sky and raise the saturation and hue for the blue channel.

FiddleMaker wrote:

I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color module (in Development) in Lightroom 5.7 . I simply moved the Blue saturation slider to -50. But in doing this, I lost my blue sky. It became noticeably gray. Hardly any blue tint at all.

How can maintain the original blue sky and still reduce the obvious blue tint to the snow bank shadows??
Thanks for any advice.

-FiddleMaker

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

If your image has a definite horizon, then the Graduated filter will work. If however the horizon is cluttered with trees, it is far more difficult. In LR 6 there is an erasure brush which works with the Graduated filter, but not in LR 5.

My examples show: top: an image with too much blue in sky and sea. (I have no snow pictures, I don't leave the house with snow on the ground if I can avoid it).
Middle is where I have removed all blue from the image.
Bottom is where I have put back some blue into the sky, but the tree line is awful, I tried cutting back on the amount of blue then bringing down the grad filter to the waters edge but again, the finish is not right.

(Download)

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

FiddleMaker wrote:

I have a winter scene in which I was able to throttle back on the obvious blue tint to shadows cast on the white snow. This I did in the Color module (in Development) in Lightroom 5.7 . I simply moved the Blue saturation slider to -50. But in doing this, I lost my blue sky. It became noticeably gray. Hardly any blue tint at all.

How can maintain the original blue sky and still reduce the obvious blue tint to the snow bank shadows??
Thanks for any advice.

-FiddleMaker

Though a program that does layers is the best solution, I've been able to do remarkable things with the grad filter and radial filter in LR to correct these types of scenes. You have to be willing to stick with it a while and apply several of these things in the areas and shapes you need, using the WB sliders, the saturation sliders, and sometimes other controls in those filters. If you wanted to post the image, folks would probably test it out and see if they could accomplish anything with just LR.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Searcher wrote:

If your image has a definite horizon, then the Gra... (show quote)

Searcher, your bottom pix is basically what I want to achieve. Tone down the excessive blue tones in the snow shadows and keep the sky blue. The for-ground of the sky contains many winter-time trees and painting in the blue among all the small branches would raise my blood pressure.
So.........bottom line, would Elements 13 allow me to achieve what I want more easily than Lr 5.7 ??
Thnx for any advise on Elements 13. -FiddleMaker

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

FiddleMaker wrote:

Searcher, your bottom pix is basically what I want to achieve. Tone down the excessive blue tones in the snow shadows and keep the sky blue. The for-ground of the sky contains many winter-time trees and painting in the blue among all the small branches would raise my blood pressure.
So.........bottom line, would Elements 13 allow me to achieve what I want more easily than Lr 5.7 ??
Thnx for any advise on Elements 13. -FiddleMaker

Yes, elements would be better. If you examine that 3rd image, its very crude. the blue has been partially removed from the trees. I painted some back in, but with the best will in the world tiny spots of colour are not easy to manipulate in LR.

As most people know, I advocate LR for a lot more than just the file management capabilities, but when it comes to local colour adjustments the precision is not there.

LR6 is improved by including the erasure brush but it is not a good tool for small detail work.

FiddleMaker Loc: Merrimac, MA

Searcher wrote:

Yes, elements would be better. If you examine that... (show quote)

Searcher, thanks much for you input. You and Gene51 always present interesting and useful advice. Much appreciated.
Because of age and health issues, I do not want to get involved with the full-fledged Photoshop edition. I will never live long enuf to get the hang of it. But Elements should be fine or perhaps one of Adobe's competitor's products. :lol:
-FiddleMaker

blackest Loc: Ireland

FiddleMaker wrote:

Searcher, your bottom pix is basically what I want to achieve. Tone down the excessive blue tones in the snow shadows and keep the sky blue. The for-ground of the sky contains many winter-time trees and painting in the blue among all the small branches would raise my blood pressure.
So.........bottom line, would Elements 13 allow me to achieve what I want more easily than Lr 5.7 ??
Thnx for any advise on Elements 13. -FiddleMaker

This video may help, if not this one have a look at some of his other ones.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-A3NGq2LSg

I might be wrong but the snow has a bluecast from the white balance, if you correct this so the snow is white, you will want to recover the blue in the sky. This you can do pretty well with graduated filters and brushes, you can even use a brush to just increase the blue saturation.
You might do it the other way round and just fix the snow by reducing the blue saturation.

Serge Ramelli really knows lightroom inside out. You might not like his style his images are quite painterly in general, they do look good but they seem to move a long way from the original photograph.

daldds Loc: NYC

Photoshop solves the problem in one move. Correct the color in the whole image with a layer mask, then brush away the change in the areas you do not want changed.