Like most of my professional photographer friends, I enjoy a photographic challenge. Combine that with a Photoshop challenge, and I’m in digital imaging heaven!
My most recent challenge was a self-assignment to photograph the Ice Hotel (www.icehotel-canada.com) in Quebec, Canada, which is about a 30-minute cab ride from the airport.
One of my goals was to get cool, new images for my Photoshop sessions at Photoshop World, which, as you know if you’ve been there, is totally cool!

To download the images from this tutorial, click here

At the hotel, my challenges included:
• photographing clear ice against a snow background
• getting detailed pictures of the soft ice and snow
• dealing with strong contrast between the elements in the scene
• shooting in the tight conditions of the relatively small rooms
• getting colorful pictures of white subjects
• reducing reflections on the ice and snow, inside and outside of the hotel
• keeping my cameras warm so as not to lose battery power
• avoiding having people in my pictures, because I didn’t want to get model releases
• keeping myself warm.

Before we continue, I’m sure many of you have a question: “What was it like sleeping in the Ice Hotel?” Well, with no heat and a “mattress” placed over an ice slab, the rooms are extremely cold, especially at 2:30 a.m. when the outside temperature is below freezing. That’s why I stayed in the cozy lodge next door, unlike a young couple I met the next day that, indeed, braved the chilly conditions in their rooms.

At the hotel, I shot with my Canon EOS 5D, keeping my four extra batteries warm inside of my coat. Outside, I used my Canon 17–40mm lens with a polarizing filter, which helped reduce the glare on the snow and ice. Inside, I used my Canon 14mm lens, which let me get super-wide shots of the rooms.

After the shoot, in the comfort of my toasty lodge room, I downloaded the images and worked on, and played with, them in Photoshop. It was an enjoyable experience.

On these pages, I’ll share with you some of my before-and-after Photoshop CS3 images, as well as some of the most important techniques I used on each image, in the event that you find yourself in similar challenging conditions.

Create drama

Here’s the RAW file of the image that opens this article. Following are the techniques I used to create that more dramatic version of the image.

• In Adobe Camera Raw 4, under the Basic tab, I reduced the Exposure, increased the Contrast, and increased the Blacks.
• The new Vibrance control was then used to add, that’s right, more vibrance to the image.
• The next step was to open the image in Photoshop and sharpen only the sky using Unsharp Mask. That was easy, thanks to the new smart filter feature in Photoshop CS3, which works like an adjustment layer with a layer mask—letting you selectively apply an effect to any area of an image.
• To apply a filter as a smart filter, you have to first convert the layer to a smart object (Filter>Convert for Smart Filters). Then choose your filter (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask in this example), make adjustments for whatever part of the image you want to affect (here, I sharpened the sky), and click OK.
• Next, click on the Smart Filters layer mask in the Layers panel, choose the Brush tool (B), make your Foreground color black, and paint away the effect where you want it removed from the image.

Speaking of dramatic, here’s a black-and-white version of the same image created with the new Camera Raw 4. To convert an image to black-and-white, go under the HSL/Grayscale tab, check Convert to Grayscale and play around with the sliders. If you’re into black-and-white images, you’ll definitely want to experiment with this new and improved CS3 feature.

High Dynamic Range images
This is one of my favorite images from my Ice Hotel shoot. It’s the result of combining five images using the High Dynamic Range feature (File>Automate>Merge to HDR). High Dynamic Range automatically combines various exposures—each one at a different brightness level in the scene—into an image with a much greater dynamic range (ratio between dark and bright regions). The merged image here shows both the interior and exterior of the hotel, as well as some detail in the flame. This shot would be impossible with a single exposure. Now that’s cool!

Here are some shooting tips for getting the best HDR results: mount your camera on a tripod; use a cable release or the camera’s self-timer to further help prevent camera shake; shoot at a low ISO setting; reduce noise (in camera or in Camera Raw or other noise-reduction program); take more exposures at different settings than you think you’ll need (at least three); keep the aperture constant and adjust the exposure via the shutter speed; and choose a nonmoving subject (although moving water may look nice).

Warmer and cooler
Looking at a picture of one of the Ice Hotel rooms, I decided to just have some fun—and take some artistic liberty. For the gold-tone image, a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue Saturation) was added and the Saturation was boosted to +44. For the more romantic blue-tone image, I went back to my original image, added a Color Balance adjustment layer, and boosted the blue and cyan in the midtones by moving the slider knobs all the way to Blue and Cyan.

original image above

warmer version above / cooler version below

A chilly experiment
For the final image in this pair of pictures of the Ice Hotel’s church, almost all of the adjustments and enhancements were made in Camera Raw, including using the Straighten tool to level out the image. I wasn’t interested in creating a true-to-color image; instead, I wanted to create a fantasy of what I thought the scene might look like had it been lit differently.

Under the Basic tab, the Contrast and Blacks were boosted, and then the Temperature (color temperature) was changed to 4300, which cooled off the image, color temperature-wise. While still under the Basic tab, the Saturation and Vibrance were increased just a bit. Under the Detail tab, the Sharpening was set to 100, and the Luminance and Color Noise Reductions sliders were both set to 30 (increasing them more can make a picture look mushy).

If you look closely, you’ll see that the enhanced image looks as though it were taken with a 15mm fisheye lens, instead of the 14mm lens that was actually used. The Warp feature in Photoshop CS3, was used to create this effect. To duplicate this technique, choose Select>All then choose Edit>Transform>Warp and pull out on the left and right anchor points.

It’s important to note that as a travel photographer, photography is a 50/50 deal: 50% image capture and 50% digital darkroom work. When you shoot, always keep the result that you want—and Photoshop—in mind.