Frozen Lake (Irish Town)

I decided to try getting up somewhat early (around 6h30am) and go straight to Irish Town. I didn't have any plans, I just wanted to see what was available. There's often mist on the lake and some clouds in the morning but unfortunately, there were none of those things.

I did see the nice side light hitting the trees. I really liked the tree on the left but it didn't feel right to have it on its own because of the busyness around. So I tried with the 27mm so I would get a wider shot but that was way too wide. I was getting too much sky and lake as well. So pano it was. I took 2 shots and cropped in a square format.

This shot was with my Fujifilm X-T3 + Fujinon XF55-200mm. This is out of camera raw with Lightroom presets (Adobe Color):

As always, the before and after shots have the same exposure and same white balance. So all the colors are tweaked in the HSL tab and the Color Grading. First, for global adjustments, I bumped the shadows and clarity a bit. I lowered the vibrancy and I often do this after a lot of editing. It removes that overboard look. Also, cameras nowadays, have very saturated colors. The blacks are lifted in the Tone Curve.

For the colors, I was going for a yellow and aqua color. The HSL and color grading reflect that. Shadows are teal/blue and highlights are yellowish.

There's a lot of local adjustments. Let's start with the big ones. 3 gradient filters. 1 for the sky and 2 for the lake. I have 2 so I can darken the first half. I have a big circular filter on the right side but only showing half of it with some dehaze and warmer temp. I love this effect.

Now for local brush adjustments. I really love doing this new way for the highlights. I take a brush and mask only for the highlights. Then you can warm up the temp and adjust the whites. You have a lot more control and the results are better than global adjustments. I have a few on the trees to accentuate the light, especially on the right trees.

55mm 1/20sec F/13 ISO 160

Some clouds would have definitely made the picture even better instead of clear skies. Also, I'm cutting off the right tree a little bit so a little wider would've been a bit better. But I really like the color of the ice and the light on the trees. A shot to try again next year.