In search of a different "glow" ...

[dmr]

Maybe you fine people here can help me out or maybe give me some hints here, or maybe tell me you don't think it's practical ...

What I have is a very old slide shot with Infrared Ektachrome (old E3 process) back in the early 70's. It's a shot that I like as is, surreal false color with magenta foliage and the rest almost monochrome with hints of blues and greens.

What I'm trying to do is to make a black and white print which appears similar to those shot on infrared B&W film where the trees have this shimmery, almost silver-like "glow" to them. I'm sure many of you know the effect I mean.

I assume that the reds in the positive most closely represent the infrareds in the original, so what I did was kill the green and blue channels, desaturate, and tweak the levels a a wee bit. What I get is approaching the effect I want, but not really. I've tried adjustments and curves, but what you see below is the closest I can get.

Does anybody whose maybe a little more skilled at Photoshop have any hints?

Thanks, gang! 🙂

 

[dkapp]

Try using the channel mixer. You will be able to adjust the colors to get the look you want. Be sure to check the "monochrome" box.

 

[hoot]

I like both versions so far. The color one is a bit blue-heavy, though.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Maybe a good place to start is to compare your image to a BW infrared image.

To my eye the BW infrared images appear to have a fogged and overexposed look. Your color image looks to be dead on exposure.

Also in a BW infrared the leaves have that dreamy, silvery white appearance due to reflecting so much IR. Perhaps you would have to alter the red and magenta before converting to BW in Photoshop.

 

[dkapp]

Here is a conversion using another method called "calculations". This is found under Image -> Calculations on Mac & PS CS.

The values I used.

Source 1 = Your color IR Image
Layer = Background
Channel = Red

Source 2 = Your color IR Image
Layer = Background
Channel = Red

Blending = Overlay
Opacity = 100%

Result = New Channel

From there I did a slight levels adjustment and was done.

Dave

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Forgive me I have altered your image for the sake of demonstration.

In photoshop 7 -

I used Hue/Saturation (ctrl U) to desaturate the Red and Magenta. (pic 1)

I opened Hue/Saturation again Then I desaturated the whole thing, followed by adjusting the curves a bit (RGB) (pic 2)

I duplicated that layer and set it to "Hard Light" at 55% opacity (pic 3)

Back to the first layer duplicated it, made a rough selection of the trees using the Lasso tool and feathered the selection 8 pixels then adjusted the curves (RGB) to increase brightness and contrast on the trees alone, Gaussian blurred it at 8 pixels, then moved that layer so that it is above layer two, set it to "Screen" and 40% opacity. (pic 4)

 

[dmr]

Oh wow! I take off for an hour and come back and it seems like this is the project of the week! It's gonna take me some time to digest everything so far, but I already see some examples of what are more like what I want. Thanks again everybody! 🙂

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Hi Brian- thanks for pointing out the dark sky. A step I forgot.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

My turn

-Quick mask mode

-choose a paint brush and draw a selection around the trees

-hue and saturation: desaturate red and magenta channels

-levels: bring up the highlights with the sliders but try and keep some midtones and shadows.

-filter: distort: "diffuse glow", move the grain slider to zero and play with the other two until you get it where you want it.

-select: "deselect"

-then finish up, channel mixer to make whole image BW, then burn in midtones with burn tool to give the shadows more seperation.

this would be easier on a larger file size and I'm sure there is a plug in to make it easier, I have seen plug-ins for making any images appear IR.

Todd

-

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Okay, now I'll just sit back and wait for the Colorized versions of my images to Pop up in the thread!

Precisely why I appologized 🙂 I felt like I was defiling another person's work.

I hope it never happens. I wont even colorize my own.

 

[T_om]

OK, here's my shot at it. Used "Calculations" conversion keeping the red channels. Ran a gaussian blur on a layer mask and dialed down the opacity until it looked right.

Tom

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

> Precisely why I appologized I felt like I was defiling another person's work.

No Bob! You misunderstood! I really meant it! I wanted to see what some of you guys would make of them. Nikki has decided that she will colorize Betty Boop cartoons, that the original artists forgot to color her in. She traces the originals and gets out the Crayons.

Brian- you are brave. I find it difficult to do, even with permission.

You should have been around me in the 80's when Turner Broadcasting started "Turner Classics." I foamed at the mouth for about a year about that hideous use of new technology. Turner bought a huge chunk of the Warner Bros Films and felt that as they owned them they could "improve" them... with color. The results were horrendous. The color flattened the rich tonality of the old black and white classics they were "fixing." The process did get better in time, but the colorization stilll bothered me as a fan of the old B&W films.

Eventually someone got through to Ted and pointed out that what they had bought in the Warner films was a treasure and that the colorizing talent would be better spent on restoration.

On occasion I commit very heavy processing on my photos and on stock images that I use in web design. In the case of the photos presented here at RFF I am very cautious in my use of retouching. I did once show how far I could take it. I only displayed it in my gallery for a short period of time. I felt it was too far outside the spirit of the forum.

I have attached a copy of one my Photoshop explorations I did for my Kid. The hot rod was shot with My Bessa and Industar 61 l/d. As you can see it really crosses over into the land of digital.

 

[dmr]

I just want to thank everybody for the hints and examples here. I've learned a lot over the past day. I was gonna post what I finally printed, but looking at the print (which is gorgeous!) and the screen, the screen shot does not do justice. It looks on the screen similar to dkapp's version, and kind of between Fedzilla's 3 and 4 images. I ended up using calculations and just tweaking a bit using curves. This is my first successful use of calculations. That one does take quite a bit of trial and error to learn. 🙂

I was able to get close to Todd's and Tom's versions, but that looked a bit too brilliant on the trees. I settled on a more subtle but still visible effect.

My first attempts at brightening the trees resulted in blowing out of the west face of the building just to the east of the Plaza Hotel (for those who know where this is) but carefully using the curves, I was able to hold the almost-white of the building but get some "glow" in the trees, which was what I imagined.

Anyway, thanks again, everybody! 🙂