Creative Effects Challenge No. 120 - RAW Icy Bench

Took my first edited image into Fotosketcher and applied an oil paint effect. Brought back into PSE and placed onto a background watercolour paper from Digital Scrapper. Then applied a black layer mask and using various brushes brushed the image back in.

live.staticflickr.com/65535/49712238952_d8186ce102_o.jpg

An attempt.

Thank you Helen for keeping this challenge going. I was trying to keep the sky, take out the building, smooth and whiten the snow while keeping a bit of texture, and add a blue accent on some iced areas.

1. In ACR: negative clarity; Open file in Elements 14.
2. Deleted the selected building.
3. Whitened the snow using the technique described by Helen. Thanks Helen!
4. Got rid of yellow in the snow, where texture was supposed to be, by created a B&W layer with a mask for the sky, the water and the left bottom corner.
5. With the Hue and Saturation adjustment layer colorized blue on iced spots (Hue at 213 and saturation at 53), masking elsewhere.
6. Brigthness/Contrast adjustment layer with gradient tool for the sky.
7. Levels adjustment layer, bringing the right triangle to 247, to meet the histogram, as a tiny contrast adjustment.

I occasionally varied opacity either at the layer level or with the brushes in the mask.

Well, if you haven't guessed from the EXIF data, this was one of my shots - taken in February 2019.  This was the first outing with a new camera so I was still figuring out settings etc.  I have grown to love it since.  The picture was taken along the Lake Huron shoreline after a winter storm.

Not an easy choice but I'll give first pick to Fotofrank with this one:



A nice job removing the building and cropped so the eye moves from the bench to the open water.  Great job making the ice look like ice and snow.  Not sure about that sky replacement - it does add a bit of colour to a winter sky but I would have preferred whiter clouds.

Second pick to BillieJean with this one:



I liked the minimalist approach - the eye goes straight to the seat and then to the open water.  Leaving the building in also worked fine with this approach with the line of the benches leading to a hint of a building.  And IMHO winter scenes like this always work well in monotone.

Third pick to HCMA with:



A nice crisp clean image and leaving the building in worked OK in this case,  I thought it had a bit too much white in the bottom left so perhaps a tighter crop would have worked better.  I also think adding more texture to the snow would work (but then I get to see a lot of snow here so get to appreciate its variety!)

Thanks to all who participated and especially Helen for organizing.  I do like playing with RAW images.  I have played around with this one myself and will post them shortly.

Tony

Congratulations to Frank and Lillias. Thanks for the nod to mine as well, Tony. Good point about a closer crop.
I like your B/W edit.

If anyone would like to submit an image for the next RAW challenge, please let me know either by replying in this thread ot sending me a PM.

Congrats to Helen and Lillias - both very well done. Thanks for the selecting to mine as well, Tony.