Infrared in Post

Infrared photography is becoming more popular today than ever before. It seems to be more retro than a very punchy black and white. Since I have just returned from a very enjoyable time out in Oregon and have downloaded all my images into Lightroom® I took a moment to play with one of the images of a running river through a setting in the forest. I saw this technique somewhere and I would love to give credit where it is due but frankly I see so much educational information the authors tend to fade from memory. Probably like I will to you in a couple of days.

The image above is an untouched RAW file from Lightroom. On the other hand the black and white image below has had Fill Light and Clarity have been punched a little. Additionally some of the shadows have been burned in a couple of places to give the B&W treatment some depth.

Take a look at the Grayscale sliders below. The greens and yellows have been really punched while all the others have been reduced to their minimum, or close to it.

The result is shown below. Ok it is not a true infrared photo, by tweaking the sliders in lightroom you can get a fairly good representation of that IR image you have always wanted. By boosting the greens and yellows you are defining the same area that the IR sensor/film would pick up the most heat energy in the shot. 

One final thing to do in post is to take the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom and dial down the Clarity. Be careful to just paint over the highlights in the leaves as this has an effect of blurring the image.

Looks klind of cool and it gives a very nice effect on an otherwise basic image.

Hey! Have a great weekend and I am back on the road next week at work so Cya then... Doug