Post Processing IR Pictures

In my previous post, I have outlined the steps to taking Infra-red pictures. However, if you have followed through the steps, you will realised that the images are reddish brown (or just reddish) in colour. Nothing like what you see on the previous posts.

You might be wondering if this is correct? Have you done something wrong?

If your images are reddish brown in colour, then you are in luck, because that is where you will begin processing the colour. You will not get this colour if you did the pre-set white balance setting wrongly.

"But this is not what I'm expecting," you protested.

Well, in this post, I will share with you the techniques of processing these images so that they will turn out to look like those images that I have posted previously. Do note that I am covering only the colour infra-red post-processing. I might cover the monochrome effect in another post.

Ok, so let's begin. First, you need to import the images into Adobe Photoshop or any other image photo editing software which will support channel swapping (A 30 days trial copy of Photoshop can be downloaded from Adobe website).

Once you have loaded the images, you got to use the Channel option. When you are in that option, change the red channel to read red=0 and blue=100. Do the same for the blue channel, where the reading is blue=0 and red=100. You will start to see a difference in the colours.

Normally following that, I will make some adjustments in the Hue / Saturation setting and do the usual post-processing. Once I am happy with the overall changes, I will do an unsharp mask and voila, you will have post-processed IR pictures!

The processes are a bit tedious and complicated but I hope you are able to follow through the steps that I have outlined above. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me an email at digital.cubes@gmail.com.