Post Processing Your Digital Infrared Images In Photoshop

Now that we have been through the steps as to how to shoot wonderful infrared images with your digital camera, I thought it would be a nice idea to share a few ideas and tips on how to enhance your infrared shooting experience in Photoshop. There are quite a few filters and also Plug-ins that have been discussed on this web site, which will make your freshly-captured digital infrared images sparkle with creativity once you upload your raw infrared files to your computer. Note: I am using Adobe Photoshop CS2 on a PC for this tutorial.Let's get started!

Once you have uploaded your digital infrared images, take a look at what you have captured, and decide upon an image to work on. Each image will take on a different life of its own once you start the treatment in Photoshop, so just pick one and off we go. Here is the photo I chose to start with for this tutorial, which is a nice shot of a mountain canyon with a river flowing through it where parts of the river are very still and created wonderful reflections. I thought it would be nice to have a photo that also contained big, puffy clouds, as they are always a wonderful infrared photography subject.

As you can see, this as yet untouched image has a bit of an off-black tone to it, and is far from properly leveled as far as contrast is concerned. If I choose, I can just use the Image>Adjustments>Auto Levels. However, I decided to bypass this step for this particular image, because it looked as though it might be a good candidate for a reddish brown tone. For this I clicked Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation or CTRL+U. As you can see by the example below, I moved the Hue slider to the left, where the more reddish tones occur, and I also saturated the image by moving that particular slider to the right. This has made the image much more colorful and interesting than just a black and white infrared already!

This is not bad for a pretty much raw file with some hue and saturation changes. Let us go a bit further now.

Even though the hue and saturation worked out nicely in Figure 2, I felt there was still something missing. I wanted more depth to the image and more detail in the beautiful reflections and clouds. A simple way to see a darker image instead of using brightness, contrast, or levels is to go to your Layers Palette and click on the background image and drag it down to the bottom of the palette and onto the little icon directly to the left of the trash bin. This is the 'create new layer' icon, and it will duplicate your background image if you drag that layer onto it. This in and of itself does nothing really, but, in a moment we will change the blending option. This is done by clicking on the small drop down menu near the top of the Layers Palette. This is set by default to 'Normal.' Click the drop down menu and drag your mouse down to the 'Multiply' selection and then click. This will basically drop the top layer on top of the bottom layer and you will have a much, much darker image. Beware that this does not work well for all images, but experimentation will give you an idea of what is possible.

Obviously in this case, the ‘Multiply’ selection was correct for this particular image and has made a beautiful vertical landscape look dynamic and saturated. Notice the details in the water where the sky is reflected, and notice the white, puffy clouds and much more sky contrast.

We could just leave this image alone and not bother with it any longer, as it is quite acceptable now. However, I thought it would be a lot of fun to add some extra photographic ‘elements’ to this image, and create a rather lovely ‘digital painting’ of sorts. Note Figure 4 to see how I pasted this element in as a new layer.

First, I opened an element I created that looks like set of sun rays. Then I just selected this element by clicking CTRL+A, and then I copied and pasted it on top of my infrared image by clicking CTRL+C, and then CTRL+V. Next we have to make this blend in, as it is a rather obvious pasted element and does not look correct in this form.

Since this element has a black background, it is easy to blend it into our infrared image by placing it where it looks best for the composition, (in this case up in a convenient cloud) and then in the Layers Palette, choosing the 'Screen' blending option from the drop down menu that is at the top of the palette. This takes the black background away and leaves just some beautiful, golden rays of the sun, which look like they are breaking through a puffy cloud. We are not quite finished with this yet, however.

As you will probably notice in Figure 6, I had to use my eraser, set at a very soft brush so the edges are blurry, and I just carefully erased around the more square-looking part of the suns rays to make them look a bit more natural. Not a lot is required in this step, just wipe away the parts of the rays that do not look like they blend in properly.

This is shaping up to be a lovely creation, but we are not quite finished yet! I thought it would be a nice touch to add another element. I photographed a little wooden dory boat some time ago, and have made a separate element out of it, so I have decided it would be fun to place it into this digital creation.

The addition of this little orange and yellow boat looks really nice, but it seems to be just 'hanging' in space. We need to create a reflection of the boat in order to make it look like it is really sitting on the water. There are two ways to create a reflection; one way is by duplicating the boat layer and then flipping the copy layer over vertically, placing it under the boat and lowering the opacity in the Layers Palette. This is a very simple way to create a reflection of anything for that matter! However, there is a wonderful Photoshop Plug-in filter made by Flaming Pear Software called 'Flood,' which allows you to create some marvelous reflections with added ripples that will match the water movement or ripples in your creations.

In Figure 8 you will note what the Flood filter is capable of when it comes to creating a reflection of my little boat, and how it is adjustable for each water ripple situation.

In order to bring the Flood filter into play, I clicked on 'Filter' in the upper toolbar in Photoshop and chose Flaming Pear>Flood from the drop down menu and clicked on that. The Flood filter screen opened up, and I was able to manipulate the settings in order to best match my water situation in my image. I needed to create a very slight water ripple, as the water was quite still and glassy in my base image. I also needed to darken the color of the boat reflection to try and match the depth and color of the base image. It was easy to create these specifications as you will observe in the figure.

Observe how the Flood filter created a wonderfully blended reflection of the boat on the glassy water in my base infrared image, and has enhanced the beauty and excitement of this digital image.

Below is the final image ready for printing and framing, and as you can clearly see, working with digital infrared images is both fun and simple when employing the versatility of Adobe Photoshop, and also the added fun and versatility of the Flood filter by Flaming Pear Software. Now, go out and create some magic of your own!

Here are a few more similar infrared images from the same shoot, using the same processes as I have described above.  I have used slightly different tones, but the result is still the same etherial, dreamy look!