3. Processing Infrared Photos in Photoshop

The Photoshop part is simple enough. The main step involves swapping the red and blue channels. This will produce an image where the cooler parts (sky, water etc.) will appear blue and the hotter parts (trees, buildings etc.) will appear white, with a hint of red.

In some cases, the image actually looks better without the channel swap. I processed this image of a field and trees without the channel swap step because it gave a more interesting, artistic feel:

For most images though, the channel swap is preferred. I use Photoshop’s adjustment layers for non-destructive editing:

1. In the “Adjustments” panel, click the icon for the “Channel Mixer” adjustment:

2. Under the “Properties” panel, select the “Red” Output Channel. Then reduce the Red value from 100 to 0 and increase the Blue value from 0 to 100:

3. Now select the “Blue” Output Channel. Then change Red from 0 to 100 and Blue from 100 to 0:

4. The channels are now swapped. Next, add a “Levels” adjustment layer:

5. For each of the three channels, drag the left and right sliders across the empty space in the histogram:

6. You should see the colors really pop out now. Next, add a “Curves” adjustment. Select the middle eye-dropper and try clicking various parts of the photo until you get a desirable color balance.

7. You can fine-tune the image further using the Hue/Saturation and “Brightness and Contrast” adjustment layers. The sky in this image has a slight gradient that makes it look unbalanced. I added a neutral density layer and a mask to make it even.

Here is my final image:

Here is the processed version of the image we looked at earlier:

I hope that you found this introduction to the world of infrared photography useful. Shooting and processing infrared photos may look intimidating at first, but it is quite straightforward once you get the hang of it.

Feel free to leave a comment below. Also keep following my Infrared set on Flickr to see more of my work.