Beijing from Above

[Collin85]

Post-processing these shots were an absolute nightmare due to the heavy pollution. The originals had extremely poor visibility - just smog. Phew! :eek:

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439684159_qsvWw-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439733939_v2Evm-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439203810_4AkDR-L-1.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439515871_EYTYL-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439824287_6yQxx-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439562063_yHGYV-L.jpg

[poppie guy]

Thanks for sharing, this is as close as I will ever come to seeing Hong Kong from the air... or ground for that matter. I especially like the last shot.

[Vulcan58]

Good work on cleaning them up - That's one heck of a crammed city!

[PhotoFred225]

very cool shots!

out of curiosity, would you post an original?

[Collin85]

Thanks for the comments. The city is crammed indeed - and what you're seeing is only one small proportion of it. Most of those are shot in the West side of the city - the 'attractive skyrises', including the CBD are generally at the East. So that's something I missed out on.

PhotoFred, here's an extreme example of what I had to clean up:

http://collin85.smugmug.com/photos/440767546_GqkGp-XL.jpg

http://collin85.smugmug.com/photos/440767579_nsioo-XL.jpg

And cleaning them up introduced alot of noise. Basically, I wouldn't want to be posting anything much larger than what I did above. The original shots are 10MP. Anything resembling the 100% crops are very ugly.

[TekHouse]

Wow! The smog is terrible. You did a good job of cleaning them up.

[Collin85]

Thanks TekHouse! For anyone interested, I have an entire series of the shots on my website. Probably around 100 shots+. Took me quite a few days to finish doing them all - now I feel all lethargic and I swear I've packed on a few pounds. :lol:

Thank God for Photoshop Actions.

[Anke]

Nice, good job of PP too.

[acrouse]

nice job, like the architecture of those 3 buildings in the last shot

[Collin85]

Thanks for the comments guys. :)

[John E]

Great shots! If you don't mind, what technique did you use to clean up the smog?

[Britania757]

Wow very nice shots! I had the same smog problem as you did, but you cleaned your photos up very well. I hope I never have to go back to Beijing. Once was enough for me lol.

[Confuzed]

I love that last picture. Were those photos taken from the roofing of a building or a hotel room?

[Collin85]

John, I used a mixture of Levels and pseudo-HDRish tools to clean the smog up. For shots like the above, Levels (or Curves) are the most important.

Confused, I took these in Beijing's CCTV tower. This tower is the broadcast center for the state-controlled China Central Television channels.

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/383670085_bS8xQ-M.jpg

[John E]

Thanks Collin85. So by using levels to increase the contrast a bit will help decrease the smog look?

[Collin85]

Yes, that's right. The most important thing about a smoggy shot with regards to fixing it up is to note that the contrast is always low. Fix that up first, and you're more than half done.

[medabug21]

How do you post process smog out of pictures? I took some in Hong Kong and there was a lot of smog..I'd like to salvage them.

[Collin85]

Medabug, first try using the Levels or Curves tool. That will immediately bring a huge improvement to the low-contrast shot caused by smog. After that, it is a case of bringing out the pop. I personally use a pseudo-HDR-ish workflow but there are many different methods here.

[Nistelrooydude]

Wow, great shots and great job cleaning them up. Well done.

[jwcdds]

Haha, sorry but I couldn't help myself. This was the perfect photo for the fake t/s effect. :) Hope you don't mind too much.

[Collin85]

Haha, dude looks good. You've just given me the idea to try a miniature series for these photos. :D

[Collin85]

Some more:

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439733939_v2Evm-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439599737_EcFCK-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439643433_eJDK6-L.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439214364_qVfZM-L-1.jpg

[leeport]

Your work is very good, your PP is excellent. Thank you for posting these, extremely nice shots.

[Collin85]

Thanks Jeff, appreciate the comments.

[dcad10]

impressive cleanup on the images, and great results!

[Collin85]

Thanks dude!

[Collin85]

Some more:

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439030451_Mp6t9-L-1.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439140440_65rLj-L-1.jpg

This one was interesting:

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439151550_8XFDP-L-1.jpg

http://www.collinzphotography.com/photos/439781316_HvKAT-L.jpg

[gwunwai]

Nice pictures, and even better PP.
I used to stay near the 3 buildings at Xizhimen :)

[zi-shuai]

the population in china very heavy indeed，

[Collin85]

Nice pictures, and even better PP.
I used to stay near the 3 buildings at Xizhimen :)

Awesome mate! :)

[Synenergy52]

Very, very nice photos. I like your realistic approach at photos vs. a lot of the artsy fartsy stuff we see (including my own pics) Nice.

[Collin85]

Very, very nice photos. I like your realistic approach at photos vs. a lot of the artsy fartsy stuff we see (including my own pics) Nice.

Thanks! I'm going to Shanghai in July so hopefully I'll be able to get something similar there.