By Kellerica
What software do you work in again...? I can never remember.
For Photoshop or similar image editing programs, my way to go about situations like these is to enlist a pile of colour adjustment layers. Create a folder, paint a mask for that folder around the areas you want to colour correct (if the snow is already it's own layer you can probably use those pixels as the mask), and stack as many adjustment layers you need in the folder. I took the liberty of downloading your map from here and messing with in Photoshop a bit. This is what I put together in 5 minutes; it doesn't entirely remove the problem and the mask work is beyong sloppy, but it does hopefully at least demonstrate what I mean. I appreciate it does also make the rivers disappear a little, but I don't know how well that can be avoided if you want to have white rivers on a snowy area...
Click image for larger version. Name: Untitled-1.jpg Views: 4 Size: 1.31 MB ID: 137160
My adjustment folder for this has three adjusment layers in it:
- 1x Vibrance, with both Vibrance and Saturation turned way down to turn the hue into a more neutral grey
- 1x Levels with highlight values dropped a tad down to bring the whiteness up
- 1x Colour Balance with the yellow-blue slider turned a touch up towards blue (I personally find that snow often has a slight blueish tint in anything but the brightest of daylight, so having snow have just a hint of blue in art makes it look more realistic to my eye)
With my own maps I often end up with a much higher amount than these in there to get shades be just what I want them. Often times I have more than one of a certain type of adjustment. It's a delicate, nitpicky art