Shooting in smog

[isabellagardener]

I just returned from a trip to Beijing where the air pollution worsened throughout our stay. The sky was washed out in most of my images and the colors of the temples appeared dull. I only had a polarizing filter with me. Any suggestions(?filters, ?processing techniques) for how to deal with this situation?

[quekbc]

I think black&white works very well with foggy/smoggy situations.

[kompressor]

When I have a problem with dust while shooting sports, I'll slide the contrast slider up a bit (in ACR). Knocks a lot of the haze down. Compensate with negative Vibrance and Fill Light if the contrast gets too high. Hope this helps, but I've talked to people that have shot there before and smog kept a lot of their shots from going to print. Good luck.

[jdepould]

Bump the contrast, black point and clarity in ACR/LR, should fix you up decently.

[quekbc]

Originally Posted by jdepould

Bump the contrast, black point and clarity in ACR/LR, should fix you up decently.

jdepould, do you expanding a bit more on the term black point. I am not familiar with that term.

[curelightwounds]

I'm pretty sure LR is Lightroom. No clue what ACR could be :[

In LR there's a slider for black level. Instant dark. It should mitigate the graying that the smog does.

[Shutterbugdeb]

I just googled ACR. I think it's Adobe Camera Raw.