Hi Mike, I think the problem with the first one is more to do with White Balance. I see on Flickr that your WB was set to Auto. Your camera is fooled by all that snow and is trying to make your picture an average 18% grey. I also use GIMP and I did an Auto WB (colours>auto>white balance) on it and it made the snow white but retained texture while bringing out some of the grain on the wood.
Snow is very difficult to expose and WB right. My solution is to shoot in RAW and adjust afterwards.
|