Infrared filter testing

My new Infrared filter arrived today and I have been having a play in the back yard, here are some photos and how I achieved the effect.

The most important thing I have learned so far is make sure you set your white balance to custom. If you do not set your white balance to custom you will end up with a all RED photo (see right). You want a BROWNISH photo, this allows better colour control.

Below are some very useful tips to get you started in Infrared Photography,
Article by Roie Galitz (http://www.galitz.co.il/en/articles/IR.shtml)

Before you take the photo

Camera Setup:

 White balance

– Infra-Red hues are more than red, they are so red that their white balance is off the scale of the automatic and preset WB in most cameras. That is why we need to perform manual white balance with a white piece of paper, or an 18% gray card to get the more precise colors, or perform the white balance on a green surface like grass to increase the effect of white foliage. If you think about it, it is better not to photograph with RAW because even with most RAW editing programs you can’t reach a white balance less than 2000 Kelvin degrees while the IR’s is much shorter.

 Light Metering

– Light Metering should be performed with the camera in an evaluative metering mode, and don’t worry too much, in most cases the metering will turn out fine. You should watch out for burnt areas because in IR they turn out blue the more you get near them. If it’s necessary, you should apply some negative exposure compensation and then adjust levels in photoshop, but most importantly avoid burnt areas. It is highly recommended to switch to manual mode (M) to get the most accurate exposures with the best control.

 Focus

– You should perform the focus before adding the IR filter to make sure that you focus correctly and switch to manual mode to maintain the focus. If you are lazy, you can use manual focus and estimate the distance (in that case automatic is better).
 

 Aperture

–It’s recommended to photograph with relatively small apertures and avoid open ones. This is because we lose a little sharpness in IR photography and shutting the aperture helps a lot in that way. In compact cameras an aperture of F/5.6 and in DSLRs and aperture of F/11 should do the trick. 

Shutter

– Due to two reasons, a small aperture and low IR sensitivity, we are forced to use slow shutter speeds, for better and for worst. Why better? Because a special effect is produced over water and clouds in very long exposures. Why worse? Because you need a tripod and it’s difficult to capture moving objects (people, animals etc.).
 

ND filter

– Sometimes it’s better to photograph with an ND filter that reduces the amount of light entering the camera even more in order to achieve longer exposures and improve the effect.
 

 Location

– It’s best to shoot from a shaded place. First and foremost, because it's hot to stand in the sun, and second because the camera loves shooting from shaded places. In addition, I would recommend blocking the viewfinder in DSLR to prevent light for leaking into the system.

After you take the photo:

Editing in photoshop

Switching channels

- When first opening the photo, we will see a photo like in the example attached, in brownish-red hues (depending on what type of white balance we used). This photo can be useful, but I also want to show you a result that is more soothing to the eye. We open the Image menu > Adjustments > Channel mixer and choose the later. A window will open like in the attached example. Under the red channel you should reduce the red from 100% to 0% and increase the blue from 0% to 100%, and on the blue channel do the opposite - decrease blue from 100% to 0% and increase red to 100%. There you have it, the channels are switched.

Adjusting Levels

- It might be that the photo is still not with the hues that we desire it to have and that is why we will adjust the levels properly (Ctrl L) and adjust the color balance (Ctrl B) to achieve colors that are more suitable to us, in the shadows, midtones and highlights.

Sharpening

- Because there is a certain degree of fuzziness, it is recommended to perform sharpening with Unsharp mask as necessary (reminder - Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp mask). I used the following parameters: Threshhold: 1, Radius: 2.0, amount: 80%.

BAD infrared photo
(white balance set to AUTO, unedited)

Good infrared photo
(Custom white balance, unedited)

Photo after post processing in photoshop.

Photoshop settings to achieve the above image:

Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer

Output channel red:

R 2
G 0
B 35

Output channel green:

R 0
G 118
B 0

Output channel blue:

R 78
G 0
B 0