Infrared Composite Bilder ( tutorial in deutscher sprache) -> how to create an IR-Composite Picture from 2 photos this tutorial describe how to create an IR-Composite picture from a normal photo and an infrared-photo. - you have to shoot a normal photo and a photo with an ir-filter - both photos will be layered and mixed in photoshop - the resulting pucture is a sort of colorized ir-picture - to maximize the special effect we use the tonemapping plugin from photomatix

IR filter ----> ----> channel-shift ----> no filter ----> ----> gaussian blur ---->

----> overlay ----> ----> IR composite

the photos was shot with a ir-modded pentax and a hoya ir 072 filter with in-camera manual whitebalance. you can use an unmodded cam but you have to expect much longer exposure times while shooting the ir-photo. more ir-fotos can be found here: ./portfolio/INFRARED/ tutorial to process ir-photos: ./tutinfrared/ tutorial to modify the pentax for ir: ./tutirmodding/ used hardware Pentax istDS Digital SLR (modified: removed lowpass filter) Hoya Infrared Filter IR 092 (58mm) used software CaptureOne Pro v3.75 www.phaseone.com RAW Converter Photoshop CS2 www.adobe.com Image Processing Software Xe847 Pro (PS-Plugin) www.xe847.com Color Correction Plugin Photomatix Tonemapping PS-Plugin www.photomatix.com DRI Plugin/Standalone Software image format source format Pentax RAW 12bit working format JPEG 8bit target format JPEG 8bit used photos photo without hoya ir filter photo with hoya ir filter 1/20sec f16 iso200 1/20sec f16 iso200 tutorial 1) mount the camera on a tripod 2) take a picture without ir-filter 3) mount the ir-filter and set the internal whitebalance for the infrared picture. exposuretime is up to 10 times longer if you use an unmodded camera. shoot in raw format to be able to correct the whitebalance in software. 4) develop the pictures with a raw-converter. i always use capture one. 5) open the jpeg or tiff of the ir-bild in photoshop. swap the red and the blue channel with the channelmixer (menu->image->adjustments->channel mixer). use the automatic level correction (menü->bild->anpassen->auto-levels). use the automatic color correction (menü->bild->anpassen->auto-color). use the photoshop plugin Xe847pro to improve color and contrast. 6) load the second photo (shot without ir-filter) in photoshop. blur the picture with the gaussian blur. use ctrl+a to select all and use ctrl+c to copy. select the previous loaded ir-bild in photoshop and use ctrl+v to insert the copied picture as a new layer into the ir-picture. 7) select the new layer and change "Normal" to "Color" in the layer-panel. reduce the opacity of the new layer. i used an opacity of 65%. with an opacity of 100% only the layer with the normal picture is visible. with an opacity of 0% only the layer with the ir picture is visible. 8) to maximize the effect we use the tonemapping plugin from photomatix. you have to change 8bit/channel to 16bit/channel first (menu->image->mode->16-bit channel). now start the photomatix/tonemapping... plugin and variate the values until it look fine for you. 9) to get more contrast in the picutre we you the Xe847pro plugin again. you have to change back 16bit/channel to 8bit/channel first (menu->image->mode->8-bit channel). thats it. + = + = + = + = {hotlink to this tutorial: http://www.xdeltax.com/tutircomposite/index.html}