Today was another nice day but a little lacking in sun.  The clouds would not give up any of the sky.  I was going to have to spend some time tonight working on real work stuff so I cut out of work about thirty minutes early.  In the long run work wins because I generally lose track of time when working from home.

My plan was to head back down to the creek for more ice and water pictures before heading to the gym.  I remembered to take my little ten inch bendable tripod with me because I was thinking with the overcast sky I was going to get shutter speeds below my ability to hold the camera steady.  I also thought that with the white ice/snow against the darker stream bed I might need to use multiple exposures to achieve what I wanted.

I have about ten to fifteen different views to process but the one I really liked was of a huge ice sheet against shallow water with visible rocks.  I had the advantage of being able to setup about 4 feet above the ice on a large boulder.  I am really happy with the picture I created.

I captured a three bracket set at -1/0/+1 EV which luckily for me my camera can do by itself.  I brought the three images into Photomatix and used the Enhancer – Painterly option.  I left the sliders as set by this options but brought the final image into PS Elements to tweak slightly.  I adjusted the levels a little and added a high pass filter layer for just the ice.  I used the soft light blending mode for the filter layer.

The resulting image is a little more ‘enhanced’ than I typically work toward but I think it works by highlighting the structure within the ice.  The painterly option for the enhancer mode in Photomatix helped bring the stones on the creek bed into view and I think they contrast with the ice nicely.

Time to go see if I can create anything else with the other pictures I captured today…

Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions or critiques.  Thanks.