jeffreyklassen
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|  | Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Thread Started on Aug 25, 2006, 11:34am » | ![[Quote]](http://s2.images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif "[Quote]") |
Hello,
I don't pretend to know everything about Infrared Photography but I have had 100's of requests for my Infrared Process, so I thought it might be nice to share it here as well.
My infrared gallery is located here: http://www.pbase.com/jeffreyk/infrared
What you need.
1. An IR filter - I have both the Tiffen 87 and Hoya R72, The tiffen is a much darker filter and doesn't allow as much colour. I recommend the HoyaR72.
2. Camera - The Nikon D70 works great with both filters. Aperently the newer cameras. (D200, D80) are not as good for IR photography. I have yet to actually test my D200 with IR.
3. A tripod - Because the Nikon cameras have IR filters to block IR you will have some long exposures so a good sturdy tripod is a must.
My IR process.
1. Set camera to manual mode, and raw data.
2. Find a nice bright patch of grass, and custom white balance on it with filter. Custom White balance is important here is what you get with and without a manual white balance. If you shoot raw which you should this is less important because you can change it later.
Straight from the camera without white balance. Very Red and hard to work with.
![[image]](http://i.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/65739005.eetic8Kd._DSC3277.jpg "[image]")
Straight from the camera with a custom white balance. As you can see a much better image from the get go.
![[image]](http://i.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/65739003.AXxb2Ux5._DSC3265.jpg "[image]")
3. Set the camera up and compose, and focus with the filter off.
4. Turn focus to manual, (To stop it from hunting around with the filter)
5. Put the filter on and check exposure, adjust the shutter speed until you are over exposing the image by quite a bit. Take a few practice shots to get it so that it is nice and bright but not overexposed.
6. Take the photo, and repeat steps 3-5 till you have lots of pictures.
7. Transfer your images to your photo-manager (i use picasa 2)
8. Pick an image that looks good, and open with Nikon capture or Adobe Raw
9. Tweak White Balance or fix it if you forgot to set a custom one.
10. Adjust lighting and exposure
11. Import to PS
12. From here I have a PS script that does the following. Download it here: http://jeffreyklassen.com/actions/JK_IR_Processing.zip
1.Creates a Channel Mixer layer with the following settings
Red Output: Red = 0%, Green = 0%, Blue = 100%
Green Output: Red = 0%, Green = 100%, Blue = 0%
Blue Output: Red = 100%, Green = 0%, Blue = 0%
![[image]](http://i.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/65740116.7Y7pcN1R.bluechannel.jpg "[image]") ![[image]](http://i.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/65740117.Dcas9jfY.redchannel.jpg "[image]")
2.Creates a Curves later above that, with Auto (I tweak it later)
3.Creates a Saturation layer above that with the following settings
Reds: -40 saturation (Always have to tweak this)
Cyans: +30 saturation
Blues: +50 saturation
13. From here you should have a image that is usable as B&W and almost there for colour. But from here on every image is very different. Here are somethings that I usually do:
1.Create a new layer and run Noise Ninja on it. Use a layer mask to apply it only to the sky and water areas.
2. Soft light layer (create a new layer and apply soft light blend-mode)I use it to enhance tones a bit.
3. I usually end up with a couple levels layers with masks to add contrast to specific areas, so I will adjust levels till the high and low lights clip, then mask those areas to bring the detail back.
4. Sharpen
This process should get you decent results if you follow it, but you have to remember that every photo is different and you will need to tweak lots of little things to get it just right.
Eventually you will end up with somthing like this. All I tweaked with this image was levels, and saturation.
![[image]](http://k43.pbase.com/g4/11/506711/2/61051165._DSC3265_edit.jpg "[image]")
PS. Well I hope someone find this useful, I may try adding some photos for the process one day.
Here are some low rez examples, visit my gallery above for better quality images.
![[image]](http://k47.pbase.com/g4/11/506711/2/61310849._DSC3322_edit.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://k43.pbase.com/g4/11/506711/2/61055652._DSC3254_edit.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://k47.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/61336393._DSC3327_Edit.jpg "[image]")
![[image]](http://k47.pbase.com/o4/11/506711/1/51200203.DSC_1270_Edit2.jpg "[image]")
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Grimble Gromble
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #1 on Aug 25, 2006, 1:46pm » | |
Jeffrey,
Wonderful technique and many thanks for the detailed description. I'm sure a lot of people are going to have fun with this.
I have no idea how much of an impact this will have, but in step 2 of "In my IR process" you state with regard to setting White Balance, "If you shoot raw which you should this is less important because you can change it later"; well the Nikon D200 (I don't know about any others) does some White Balance processing of the image data prior to writing the raw data so Nikon recommends always setting the White Balance for this camera.
Grim
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jeffreyklassen
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #2 on Aug 25, 2006, 3:47pm » | |
The WB is applied to the Raw file but it is applied in a lossless method. In raw mode WB is not set in stone, on any DSLR that I have used. When I shoot raw data on both my D70 and D200 the WB is only recorded in a lossless way to the raw file. Allowing me to change it with any raw editing software.
Although I just found out that the D200 doesnt do IR well at all. They improved the IR filters in camera, and they now block to much IR light to be really useful. You can still do it with a D200 but a D70 would be alot better.
Here is some detailed info of the D200 IR ability.
http://www.naturfotograf.com/D200_rev05IR.html#top_page
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Grimble Gromble
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #3 on Aug 26, 2006, 4:43am » | |
Most raw files simply record the WB setting alongside the photosite data which would make it lossless in one sense of the term (whatever WB you set, it will have no affect on the raw image data so whatever WB you choose in post processing, it will have exactly the same data to work from).
This is not the case with the D200. To quote from Nikon Technical Support: "Some White balance is performed before to correct colors prior to conversion making the process more accurate, as after wards it can only be performed at a bit rated supported by the processor meaning less accuracy." I believe 'bit rated' should probably read 'bit depth'.
This probably (Nikon are being very secretive about precisely what goes on so speculation is the order of the day) means that the gain of the colour channels is being manipulated at the analogue to digital stage, thereby increasing the accuracy of the 12 bit data - assuming the WB has been set correctly. This will have consequences if WB is changed in post processing so cannot properly be described as lossless. I prefer to think of it as 'better than lossless', but the WB needs to set accurately at the time of image capture in order to benefit from this.
Pity about the D200 IR response! Perhaps some sensor manufacturer will develop one with an IRGB bayer pattern instead of the more conventional RGGB?
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jeffreyklassen
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #4 on Aug 26, 2006, 8:14am » | |
Hmm interesting. I will have to sit down and play with it to see if this method changes are ability to select white balance after the fact. At least if there are any major differences that stand out visually.
Yes the poor IR performance on the D200 kinda sucks, however it does mean better image quality for regular photography. Although if you had a extra D200 you could just remove the Hot Mirror and replace it with a IR filter. I am considering doing this with my Second D70. This of course would make it IR only, but it would be a very good IR camera.
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ace
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #5 on Aug 27, 2006, 11:32am » | |
Thanks Jeffrey,
for taking the time to share the images and the how to's. I hope to try this someday and will keep this post in mind.
Cheers
Randy
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No good deed goes unpunished. |
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jeffreyklassen
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #6 on Sept 27, 2006, 1:27pm » | |
I have had a lot of people email me asking for this so here are my photoshop actions for processing IR. If you have others from around the web, these are probably pretty similar, but I have tweaked them for my needs.
http://jeffreyklassen.com/actions/JK_IR_Processing.zip
Enjoy
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jeffreyklassen
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #7 on Sept 29, 2006, 2:05pm » | |
Oops, those scripts "Auto Lighting" layer was set wrong. They are fixed now. Just download the same file, with the updated scripts if you want them.
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UKPBZ
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| | Re: Infrared Walk Through/My Work-flow
« Reply #8 on Mar 11, 2008, 12:01pm » | |
Can I ask a real dumb newbie question please?
How do I whitebalance against the grass on the D70?
Thanks
Newbie 
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wowposter
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wowposter
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« Reply #11 on Sept 10, 2008, 1:04pm » | |
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shanshan
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