PCPhoto

Digital Infrared Photography

How to use software to creatively enhance

By Rick Sammon, Photography By Rick Sammon

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This Article Features Photo Zoom

Step 1: White Balance

Step 1: Set Your Camera’s White Balance. For best results, manually set your white balance. Choose the Set White Balance setting (or other manual white-balance settings) on your camera. Fill the frame with green grass or foliage, and set your white balance on that.

Step 2: Choose Manual Exposure Mode. Set your camera to the Manual exposure mode. Setting your camera to the manual mode ensures that the white balance you’ve just stored won’t be discarded. Bracketing your exposures based on your camera’s meter reading is a good idea. Try capturing the same scene according to the meter’s recommended shutter speed and aperture and then capture a few additional frames—one slightly underexposed and one slightly overexposed. This gives you options in the digital darkroom and helps ensure at least one of the exposures will be workable. In fact, bracketing exposures is almost always a good idea, whether shooting infrared or not.


Add a Levels adjustment layer (Step 3) to optimize the tonality in the image. Next, use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Step 4) to control the color in your image. Set the layer mode to Color.	Next, Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (Step 4) to control the color in your image. Set the layer mode to Color.	Try moving the Hue slider all the way to the left (Step 5) to remove all the hue from your shot.

Step 3: Add A Levels Adjustment Layer. After you import your images to your computer, one of the first steps in Photoshop is to tweak your levels. Using a Levels Adjustment Layer, you can enhance the shadows and highlights (which increases the contrast) of the scene by moving the Shadow triangle (on the left side of the slider) to just inside the “mountain range” of the histogram, and the Highlight slider (on the right side of the slider) just inside the “mountain range.” Click OK, and your image will be greatly improved.

Step 4: Select A Hue/Saturation Color Adjustment Layer. To maintain the blue in the sky (a popular IR effect), you’ll need to add a Hue/Saturation Color Adjustment Layer. First choose Color from the Mode drop-down menu. (Hey, don’t feel bad if you didn’t know Color was an option. I only discovered it when experimenting with this technique!)

Step 5: Reduce The Hue. After you select a Hue/Saturation Color Adjustment Layer, move the Hue slider all the way to the left, which removes all the hue from the scene.

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