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A building in the Forbidden City. I'd beaten the crowds into the Forbidden City by purchasing a ticket the night before but in an effort to keep my photos people-free, I hastened my workflow to stay one step ahead of the advancing tourists. As a result, I didn't take notes on the buildings I photographed. If anyone knows the name of this building, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email.
Mouse over the image for an alternate post-processed version (Flash Required).
Before post-processing, the image is flat and colorless, particularly the typical smoggy Beijing sky. For post, I've done something I generally don't do: masked and composited a new sky. The photo was treated with white balance adjustment in ACR then brought into Photoshop for spot healing, levels, curves, color balance, and channel mixer adjustments.
Update (March 27, 2011): A newly processed version of this image is available here.
2 Comments - Royal Residence
I like the post production colors, but in the 12 day trip I took to China, I never saw a sky as beautiful as this. Blue maybe, but not with clouds like these. As I remember it, the size and scale of the Forbidden City lends itself to an equally forboding sky.
Kelso, the only time I ever saw a sky like this in Beijing was after 8 days of torrential downpours. So the blue sky phenomenon probably only happens once a decade ;-)