Monochrome Infra-Red Simulation

1. Open Image

2. Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Channel Mixer – Ok

3. Tick Monochrome box

Set Constant to +4

Set Green Channel to 200

Set blue and red to -50 and adjust to suit – I used -35 Red and -65 blue – OK

4. Now to add the “glow”

Copy background and channel mixer layers and move them above the originals. The Channel Mixer copy should be top layer with Background copy immediately below.

Switch off the original layers and select Layer – Merge Visible to merge the two copy layers into one.

Switch original layers back on

5. With the merged layer selected add Gaussian blur – select Filter – Blur - Gaussian Blur and select a value to suit – I used 10 pixels radius – OK

Change the Blend mode of this layer to Screen and adjust layer opacity – 40% worked well here.

6. Now add a bit of tone

Select Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Hue Saturation – OK

Tick colorise box

Set Hue to 40 (or as you like) and change Saturation to -15 (or as you like)

QED

You can fiddle with the Channel mixer setting to adjust the effect.

Colour Infra-Red Simulation

This attempts to create effect of Kodak Extachrome IR film without filtration.

This film reproduces healthy green vegetation as glowing red with a heavy magenta blue cast. Use of filters can produce a range of effects and the technique below can be fiddled to give a range of colour effects.

1. Open Image

2. Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Channel Mixer – Ok

Set Constant to +4

Set Green Channel to 200

Set blue and red to -50 and adjust to suit – I used -60 Red and -50 blue – OK

This gives a yellowish image on which we need to enhance the red and add a magenta/blue cast

3. Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Hue/Saturation

In Edit select Reds from drop down list and increase saturation to taste – I used quite a lot +80. Now select yellows and move the hue a bit to the left – I used -13. You now have the glowing red effect.

4. Layer – New Adjustment Layer – Colour Balance

Add magenta and blue to taste – I used -60 on magenta/green and +60 on blue/yellow.

Adjusting the Colour Balance and the Hue/Saturation can create the various false colour effects of IR film with various filters.

5. I used a levels layer to make the sky more interesting.

6. To add blur make a copy of all layers and put them on top in same order as originals then merge them and then add blur as for BW IR above although you may not want/need to change the blend mode.

David Robinson ARPS