Photoshop Infrared

Introduction In the extracted text on the previous pages, Patrick Rice discusses the mechanics of infrared and digital infrared. In a nutshell, monochrome infrared imagery distorts tonal rendition, the most prominent effects being a lightening of foliage, deepening of blue sky, a glowing, softening of skin tones and, often, enhanced grain in the image. All of these effects can be created in Photoshop although you can choose how much help that you give to Photoshop beforehand, by varying your filtration at the taking stage.

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Lee Filters There are a number of IR filters to choose from but Lee Filters provide the Lee 87 and the holders to go with it. The Lee 87 is opaque to visible light so you have to focus the camera with the filter moved out of the way, or guess, or use a rangefinder camera. The polyester filter is held via their Foundation Kit and it is best to use a mounted filter (ie with a built-in surround). The ex VAT prices were as follows (as we went to press, but about to change, so visit www.leefilters.com for latest information).

Foundation Kit £43.55
Adaptor Ring £14.66 (for the common sizes)
75x75mm Lee 87 £7.44
100x100mm Lee 87 £12.39
150x150mm Lee 87 £22.43

The bottom line is that for around about £60 you should be up and running with your infrared experimenting. The image shows a typical Lee Filter set-up (on a Walker Titan) with a deep orange filter. An 87 filter is opaque. Within the Wratten classification there are the 29 & 70 (deep red), the 87, 88A and 87C which are opaque.

Photoshop

When you get to Photoshop your options expand. Most methods use either Diffuse Glow or Gaussian Blur along with manipulation within Channel Mixer, usually emphasising the green channel (to lighten the green components of the image). The blur may be applied to the green channel or to all three channels before conversion to greyscale. All the methods are a little longwinded for all but single images and there are many action sets available to ease your way. The large composite screen grab (below left) shows offerings from Nik Filters, Gavin Phillips and some freebie web downloads. Infared

Gavin’s Actions Developed by US photographer, Gavin Phillips, these are an action set which are available for download purchase on the web. His infrared4 action, as an example, contains around 70 steps (see image right) and leaves you with three options in your History Palette (see image below A) to view along with an ability to vary the opacity of the controlling layer and/or is tonal curve (below B & C). This brings great refinement to the process along with a removal of all the hard graft! In his tutorial online, Gavin shows the use of an s-shaped curve to refine the final image. The process benefits from some carefully conducted experimenting as you get to learn the capabilities of the process.

A snip at $35, there’s a truck-load of other stuff in the actions set, including some nice variations on colour toning.

Visit www.phtoeffects.biz where you will find both demonstration images along with tutorials on using the actions – you could write your own, but frankly it is probably not worth it!

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ABOVE: Actions take care of the toil of making dozens of separate Photoshop adjustments, this list from Gavin’s Actions.

BELOW : Gavin’s Actions leave you with discrete History states so that you can choose. These may be further adjusted to taste.

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BELOW: Anabel models the Infrared 4 effect in the Malta sunlight.

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