2 Methods of creating infra-red
 

I have used a plugin from www.CYBIA.CO.UK called Fotomatic.It can get close to what you are looking for, but best of all it's free.
The other alternative is to buy Paintshop pro12 which has a good IR effect.I have included some samples of colour pictures that have been converted.

Not bad Jake but the conversion of the greenery is what lets all these false effects down.

Pseudo infra-red
 

I agree they are not perfect, but they were not shot as infra-red .Also evergreen trees do not come out as white because of their structure.It also depends which type of IR film you are trying to imitate.Kodak was a grainy film and the later Konica had very little grain.
I won my first club competitions printing Kodak on a hard paper so that the picture came out like a pencil drawing.The negatives were so dense that it took over 30mins under the enlarger.The results were nowhere near the traditional concept of IR.
I tried Konica but sometimes it looked no different to ordinary monochrome, so I think it depends what effect you are looking for as to which way you go.

Agreed Jake - it does depend on what effect you are looking for. Have you tried any of the "photoshop actions" - there are loads of free ones on the web, some of which have a go at the false colour effects. It's a matter of trial and error, but some of them are very good indeed.

Cheap IR
 

Yes, I have accumalated more actions than I know what to do with, it's a weakness of mine. As regards this problem I am sticking with Paintshop, my other program is PS7, can't afford to buy anymore.
Paintshop is not perfect, it runs on my laptop but not on my desktop,both use Vista.It was better in the days of XP.

Agree with you on evergreens Jake, and that shows well in your third image. Lots of vegetation appears to be as it would in IR.

Just read Peters post re IR and his 30D. So maybe this is his only option for now. I also re-read the link I posted re the 30D and IR and noticed the exposure times/aperture and ISO.

D2X is a no, no for IR due to its strong AA filter. I have dug out a B+W 091 red filter ( cut off probably about 600-650 ) so I will give that a go, and look at individual colour channels.
Not at all sure how to get rid of any one of the 3 channels in photoshop yet to get a B&W image from the result. :confused: Thats a call for a photoshop wizard. ;) :)

Still I will have a go tomorrow as its a full sun day and the field of spuds over the fence should do fine for seeing the effect on foliage.

Don

Hi Don, Does this help? it applies to CS4.

"You may want to delete spot or alpha channels you no longer need before saving an image. Complex alpha channels can substantially increase the disk space required for an image.

In Photoshop, select the channel in the Channels panel and do one of the following:
Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Delete icon .
Drag the channel name in the panel to the Delete icon.
Choose Delete Channel from the Channels panel menu.
Click the Delete icon at the bottom of the panel, and then click Yes.
Note: When you delete a color channel from a file with layers, visible layers are flattened and hidden layers are discarded. This is done because removing a color channel converts the image to Multichannel mode, which does not support layers. An image isn’t flattened when you delete an alpha channel, a spot channel, or a quick mask.

Cheers Andy,

I am using CS2 but will give it a go.

Let the testing begin. :D

Don

Fine Don, here's the same for CS2
http://www.uwec.edu/Help/PhotoshopCS2/layers.htm

Thanks Andy.

Before starting with the B+W 091 Dark Red filter which I have confirmed as 0% at 600nm, 50% at 620nm, I thought I would go for broke and try the Hoya R72 on the D2X.

To give some understanding of probs I would have with the D2X this is what Bjørn Rørslett says of using it for IR
" You should not do IR with D2X. Simple message, simple remedy: Just don't do it. There are so much more satisfying approaches to digital IR than those available with D2X. On the other hand, the low sensitiivty to IR implies you may get less problems with skin tones, which are unduly susceptible to excessive IR. "

Finding an acceptable exposure took no time at all as I added 3 stops to the D100 mark. Settled on ISO800 - 4secs - f8.

Initially I set WB to Auto and the image is very red, and although I converted this to a B&W easily, I have been playing with various options for a Custom WB. Time taken out to find my manual and actually read it.

With the D100 I found far better results were obtainable with Custom WB taken from sunlit grass. The D2X set to the same gives reasonable results, but after the simple route processing as mentioned in post 44 I had to remove a blue cast and tweek it in curves. Left and right edges of the frame taken with the 35mm lens had to be cropped as they have an odd look. The 20mm lens that is brill on the D2x in visible light, and excellent on the D100 in visible and IR, suffered significant probs in bright areas at the edge of the frame on the D2X in IR. Enough not to use it for these experiments.

Attatched is the first false colour image from the D2X. The fence which came out light brown on the D100 is not so good and shows the blue cast well.
Next up I will add a polariser which on the D100 removes most of the false colour leaving a near B&W image.

Don

D2X polarised false colour infrared.

Well this one is a bit of a surprise. On the D100 most of the false colour would have gone, particularly in the sky. Processing was the same as in my gallery shot of The Swaffham Turbine taken on the D100. I have attatched that for comparison.

Adding a polariser has taken the exposure out to 15secs. In this situation an eyepiece blind of some sort is absolutely critical to prevent visible light contamination.

Don

I have just tried the B+W 091 Dark Red filter, and that just lets too much visible light through. So it is a no go way of getting round the long exposure times required with a proper IR filter.

Don

What filter did you get then Peter.
Looking back at the 30D test with a Hoya R72, that chap was getting 4 secs at f2.8 at ISO800. So say 16 secs at f5.6 ISO800 puts you in the same ballpark as my D2X with polariser. Stronger IR filters than the R72, example the B+W 093 that cuts at 800nm, would probably require far longer exposure times.

My tests show that the only possible source of IR contamination if you use a screw in IR filter, is stray light through the viewfinder. Eliminate that, and exposure duration is not a prob until sensor heat creates its own set of problems.

Don

Hi all, I have just posted a couple to the Gallery. Full processes explained and EXIF preserved. Don these are my first Manual WB - set to the surrounding grass. PS, I chose to convert the D100, rather than a D2x, because several people mention its very strong anti-aliasing (?) filter, which makes it quite insensitive to IR.

Now Andy I suggest you check out the shooting banks.
The D100 has two available. This would allow a set up similar to mine, where I have Bank A on Auto WB, and Bank B on Custom WB taken from sunlit grass. Depending on the effect you want you can just go to menu (1st line) and pick your preference without redoing WB for each session.

Next up if you do not have one, is a polariser. :)

Don

Thanks Don - done the shooting banks and have the polarizer :)

IR with a unmodified Canon 40D
 

Checking the net for various IR processing methods I found a blog with some info that is quite useful, particularly for any Canon 40D users fancying a go with an unmodified camera.
It is a two parter with quite a few relevant responses in each part.
Part 1
http://stevencastle.wordpress.com/20...ng-on-a-d-slr/
Part 2
http://stevencastle.wordpress.com/20...-false-colour/

Don

after much messing around I've come to the conclussion that either the Canon's aren't great for IR, or my cheap filter isn't a true IR one... or most likely I just don't know what I'm doing! Anyway I picked up an IR converted compact to have a play with and it really does make things simple.

Interesting result Peter.
A couple of questions for you. How much processing did you have to do, and is this taken with auto or custom WB ?

Don

Very interesting Peter, another question, do you know what filter is in it?

The shot was taken in jpg using custom white balance and -2/3rd ev comp - not much PP done, just a small adjustment in contrast and brightness, then resized and a dash of USM.

I was told that the camera has a Hoya R72 fitted in place of the hot mirror but looking at my shots I suspect it's a slightly stronger one. I'll have a play shooting RAW in the next few days and see what it's really seeing.

Very interesting Peter, as you can see from my post number 71 in this thread, my pictures all come out with a magenta cast. My filter is a 720 nm which it the high end of the R72 - almost black. How did you set your custom WB? I'm still playing with mine but always get magenta so far. Andy

I took a shot of grass in direct sunlight (using auto WB) and set my custom white balance from that, it seems to have worked well enough. From what I've read this is the commonest way of doing it, though you can also get nice results is you use a blue sky to set it from.

Thanks for that, it's what I'm using as well, needs more play.

I've just been playing with the sample images that I got from ACS using a converted D200 - the attached image shows the difference in the auto and custom (again using grass) white balances on that converted camera.

Hi Peter, I think I have finally sorted my preset WB - I suppose as the camera is converted for IR I will seldom need to change it. Below is the straight from camera followed by a twitch of RBG. This is a lot easier now.

Just got back from Cuba, far to hot to bother much with photography, but here's one take from the veranda of my holiday villa.

WB was my custom one set in England by photographing green grass.

Normal P&P plus a little tweaking.

Harry

Excellent Harry, welcome home - trust you had a good time.

As the title of this thread is IR on the cheap, here is a link to a web page that has a Photoshop Action for FAUX INFRARED - ie false infrared - and you cannot get cheaper than that - use your own pics and treat them in post processing, no gadgets - just your imagination. This site has a lot of Actions for Photoshop and they are worth learning how to use as they save you from re-inventing the wheel each time. This is an excellent site and has actions for many different versions of Photoshop - http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRFauxInfrared.htm
Have fun and enjoy playing - the only limit is your imagination.

Looks interesting Andy. Thanks for posting.

A bit busy doing some NX tutorials at the moment but I will check it out when I have done.

Don

And now folks I share the Photoshop Action for true Infrared pictures - which I know works from CS upwards, this one HAS POP UPS THAT WALK YOU THROUGH THE ACTION and will also explain the steps as you go through it. It will also allow you to make your own adjustments at each stage as you go along. Don, this is what I used on Lady Bug. For those who do not have IR cameras or filters, try taking a normal picture, load it into photoshop and INVERT it. Then run this action on it, I think you may find it fun.

LINK:

http://www.prophotonut.com/2008/08/1...free-download/

I would recommend this site as well as I find it very good and helpful.

And another Tip: SHOOT IN JPEG . I have not yet found it possible to shoot my colour infrared system with RAW capture, as Photoshop, Aperture or Lightroom do NOT have the adjustment range within their colour balance sliders to pull the colours into an acceptable starting point. OTHER PC PROGRAMS may well be different - but I use a Mac.

Foxy would crack up reading that as he is a Mac nut. :eek: :D

Only time for a quick play with that one Andy.
I use RAW ( nef ), so have done a quick side by side with the Khromagery free action that I use, with files converted to 16bit tiff in NX2.
For this comparison only the actions have been run. No other tweeks.

Link to Khromagery for those processing 16bit files.
http://khromagery.com.au/digital_ir.html


D100 with its old processing engine takes quite some time to write a custom WB raw file to the card which you may find a pain. I am fairly relaxed about that though, as my subjects are not going anywhere. ;)

Don

Thanks Don, it keeps life interesting to tweak Basil's Brush from time to time :eek: :rolleyes: I can tell you went straight through as the Gaussian Blur starts at 50% but I usually reduce it to zero. Did you find the pop-ups a help? I think others might as it sort of explains what it's doing as you go through.
Like both thumbs - I also use the Khromagery Action as well as a couple of others and some I've written myself.

Andy,
This was just a quick comparison and no more. I've been busy doing NX tutorials for David, Jims dad.
Now that is done I will try a few tests having read through your link.

I have to get my head round this comment from Damiens Recipe for creating colour infrared pictures ............
" Shoot in jpeg. Once you have your camera shoot in jpeg. I have not yet found it possible to shoot my colour infrared system with RAW capture, as neither Photoshop or Lightroom have the adjustment range within their colour balance sliders to pull the colours in to an acceptable starting point. Capture One or Raw Developer may be well be different. "

I am a bit puzzled as my understanding of the difference between 8 and 16 bit is the amount of colour info per primary colour and no more.
8bit - 256 intensity values for each primary colour and 16bit - 65536 intensity values for each primary colour.

I am sure that how an image editor recognises/or not, the custom WB value is a greater influencing factor.

21 bookmarked links on IR still to properly read through. I think it will be a lot quicker for me to do a few experiments myself.

Don

Hi Don it puzzled me too until I realised that most of my stuff comes out of Aperture and I've been exporting jpegs for editing in Photoshop, rather than editing within Aperture itself. So I tried importing direct off a card Via Capture NX2 and used an NEF file in Photoshop and Lightroom. I'm still trying to sort it out because on each occasion I ended up with PSD or TIFF - so I'm pouring through Scott Kelby looking for an answer. I have to say however I'm finding the JPEG route perfectly acceptable so I'm also puzzled by Damiens statement which I confess I just copied without reading too closely.:rolleyes::o

You just beat me to it Andy,

I tried a few shots today to compare those taken in RAW and those taken in Jpeg. Raw were converted to tiff in NX2 and then IR conversions were done in CS2 using the Khromagery action. I could not see much difference between the two. So despite the massive difference in the cameras write to card speed I will stick with Nefs to give myself 16bit images. The advantage of that will no doubt be in lack of posterisation in the skies.

Just for a chuckle I took an infrared and a standard visible light shot in order to try and paint the lavender blooms in on the IR version.
Very difficult to find the flower heads in the mass of white, so next time I will try something a bit easier. :rolleyes: :)

Don

Andy,
If you are happy with Jpegs then stick with them.
I do not know if your converted D100 is any faster at writing a Custom WB NEF file to card, but on mine using an on the lens IR filter that is a long time ( 35 secs ). Jpegs on the other hand are very quick.

Don

I am doing it the old fashioned way that I had to go when I used the lack of power laptop.
Open the Nef in NX2 then save as a 16bit Tiff. Open CS2 then process the Tiff.

I remember Chris used to use PSD files untill he got NX. His verdict was Nef's take far less space than PSD's.

Don

Thanks Don, the D100 is set to RAW and the downloads from camera direct connection to computer take forever - 30 images - up to 15 minutes. The card in the reader is not much better but is faster -(I use an 8Gb SanDisk Extreme III). I' going to switch to taking in JPEG and will see what the difference is - Love the Lavender Thumbnail - great shot.

30 secs each :eek:

I have Nikon View 6 (pre NX days ) and NX transfer needed for Stevies D300 pics, and I find View 6 with D2X downloads files faster than NX with D300 files. Yet open those same files in NX2 and the D2X ones take longer to load. :confused:

On the card front I have only just retired my origional IBM 1Gb microdrive and replaced it with a suitably low tech Sandisk Ultra II 2GB. In the same vein I read Foxys thread which reminded me that when I got the D100 all that time ago, it came with a 128mb card and a 1 Gb microdrive was considered pretty much state of the art. :)
8Gb would have been unimaginable.

Don