I've always fancied trying Infrared (IR) photography but you need expensive filters, a very expensive camera or you need to remove filters from an existing camera.
Imagine how happy I was to discover that Photoshop (CS4) has a simulated IR filter effect!
Here's a good overview of the subject:
One of the most charming contrasting color effects you can get in photography is by using infrared. An easy way to understand near-infrared light is to think of it as the color of the rainbow next to red, a color that is invisible to the human eye. But near-infrared is not the same as thermal imaging.
Because everyday objects reflect infrared in proportions that differ sharply from that of visible light, the tonal relationships are wildly unexpected. Such near-infrared techniques used in photography give subjects an exotic, antique look. Green vegetation becomes white, whereas human skin becomes pale and ghostly. The resulting images look alien.
Digital cameras use CCD and other similar sensors to capture infrared images. Although all digital cameras available on the market are sensitive to infrared light, they are equipped with infrared-blocking filters. The main reason for this is that consumer cameras are designed to capture visible light. But sometimes these filters are used together, giving very interesting in-camera effects like false color, wood effects etc.
To start with infrared photography, all you need to have is
- A digital camera that is sensitive to infrared light.
- A visible-light blocking filter (e.g. a Wratten 89B filter)
- Image-editing software, such as Photoshop.
Near-infrared images straight out of the camera do not always look good and are usually not as dramatic and beautiful as normally captured images. Hence, a lot of post-processing is done to enhance these images. Some techniques used in post-processing are equalization, focus shift, small aperture, light leaks, digital false color, halo, etc.
Below, we present a selection of over 40 beautiful infrared images. Some of these images have undergone heavy post-processing, and all of these examples display the names of the photographers, along with links to their websites.
Also take a look at our previous photography articles:
Source:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/11/40-incredible-near-infrared-photos/
Here's my first attempt. As it says above, green vegetation gives off a lot of IR so it turns whitr, whereas a blue sky has almost no IR component so appears very dark.
One of my old macro shots, Lea Valley at sunrise:

And after the IR filter is applied:

Again as it says above, this is just the beginning of the post-processing process. Now I need to learn how to do all that other stuff. I'll be back!
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