There are people who proudly proclaim that their photos are all “just as they came out of the camera”. I am not these people. I am particularly not these people when it comes to working with the IR mod camera. Images need to be processed or they’d all just be a sad red fog. Let me show you . . .
Roughly, the processing process here went like this (clockwise from the top left).
- The in-camera jpg, which is pretty much what my camera’s viewfinder shows me
- The raw file with default settings
- Custom camera profile applied and brightness etc adjusted in ACR
- Colour channels swapped in Photoshop, tweaking (I like the Nik HDR filter to add some structure, though not tooo much, also playing with the colour balance) and finishing with a high-pass to zing up the fur
One of the aspects I enjoy with this sort of camera (with the sensor that filters out non-visible light removed) is that as well as all the usual photographic fun of choosing subjects and lenses and apertures and shutter speeds and all the rest, there’s also a very necessary bunch of extra creative choices to make.
- Before the photograph: which filter to catch which part of light our eyes can’t quite see naturally
- After the photograph: all the different processing choices. So many choices.
Much fun.
Part of the joy is the joy of discovery, revealing an interesting or unexpected image hiding in an unprocessed fog.
