Digital Infrared Photography Photo Workshop

Chapter 9. TRANSFORM COLOR TO IR EFFECT IN PHOTOSHOP

When I review my own work and browse through digital photographs I've taken in the past, sometimes I come across a few that I wish I had photographed in IR instead of color. Or I simply wonder how they would look in IR. Although I frequently photograph in IR, not every color photo in my collection has an IR equivalent. Although you might not expect to be able to convert a color photo to IR, you might be surprised to learn ways you can emulate an IR look in many cases. For example, compare these two images (9-1 and 9-2) that I photographed in Damaraland, Namibia. To accomplish the very dramatic transformation I used IR effects in Photoshop.

Certain color images will come to life when re-created with an IR effect; others can't come close to a true IR image. Particularly, foliage and the translucence of skin tones in IR are a challenge to reproduce. Not every color image succeeds at achieving a photographed-in-IR look, but you can try various techniques to see if one works best.

There are several ways to work with your color images for an IR look, or to replicate a traditional IR film appearance through various software applications and plug-ins. The techniques I cover in this chapter show you how to transform a color image so it has a photographed-in-IR look.

Figure 9-1. ABOUT THIS PHOTO A single cloud punctuated a blue sky, which created ...