The best solution is to get your camera professionally converted so it can see infrared light. Many photographers convert their old DSLRs once they have upgraded. Be warned though: once you convert you can’t go back!

So what is infrared light? The colours that most of our eyes can see starts at about 400nm (1nm = one billionth of a metre = 10-9) at the short end of the electromagnetic spectrum (violet) and goes down through the colours of the rainbow to about 700nm on the long end (red wavelengths). This is just about where infrared starts, and it goes down through and beyond one millimetre.

What other subjects lend themselves to digital infrared photography? Some photographers think it’s an effective technique for portraits or fine art nude photography. It produces light, milky, smooth skin tones and removes most skin blemishes while giving hair a fine, silky appearance.

In addition, lakes, rivers, streams and the sea look dark and rich because water normally gets its blue colour from reflecting the sky. We like the infrared effect best when it contrasts something old, dark and man-made with healthy green trees.

Once you’ve converted your camera here are the steps you need to take to shoot a digital infrared image…

1. Infrared setup
Strange as it may seem, infrared is the same as your average landscape setup – apart from the very specially modified Canon 50D body.

Since there was a fence in the way, this scene required a really wide lens. Enter the Canon EF-S 10 to 22mm f/3.5/4.5 USM lens set to 10mm – with a lens hood, a tripod, ball head, remote release and bubble level.

2. No filter required
This is the beauty of a modified camera – it looks and acts like a normal DSLR. You can frame and compose the image with a bright colourful viewfinder, and exposure times are in line with a normal body (just slightly faster).

When you capture an image, however, it looks red on the rear display.

3. White Balance customisation
This is a very important step for a modified camera. You need to use a custom White Balance on healthy green vegetation that’s lit from your main light source.

In this case, the sun and the grass lawn worked well; we filled the frame with the sun-drenched grass and manually defocused the lens (either to infinity or to the closest focus).

You don’t have to worry about the White Balance settings for this image, just make sure it’s not overexposed or significantly underexposed. Use the button on top to select White balance > Custom, then Menu > Custom WB and confirm the image.

4. Focus in Live View
In our experience, focus is a critical step. You can’t, for example, manually focus by looking through the viewfinder and adjusting the focus ring, because we can only see visible light.

You can trust the camera to autofocus correctly, depending on the quality of the camera conversion and the manner in which it was calibrated.

If the scene’s not lit by the sun, however, you won’t know the ratio of visible light to invisible light – or if there is any infrared light at all. The safe money is on Live View focusing, because then you know the subject is sharp.

5. Not just for infrared
A modified camera isn’t just for greenery, trees and summertime – after it’s converted to infrared, you’ll have an outstanding black-and-white camera.

The anti-aliasing filter, or anti-Moiré filter, has been removed too; this filter softens the image to prevent the colour banding issues you can get with patterns.

Camera flashguns and most streetlights have infrared light in them, so there’s lots of light available.

6. Issues with flaring
In this case the fly in the ointment is the dreaded Hot Spot! Modern zoom lenses and lens coatings aren’t designed for handling infrared light, but film camera lenses were – they had a red spot on them to shift focus onto.

Depending on the amount of infrared light around, the aperture and focal length used (a smaller aperture is normally worse), conditions such as flare can produce a round lighter ring in the centre of your image.

This isn’t usually an issue for black-and-white shots, but it’s distressing for false colour. You can buy an old lens on eBay or look for one with a red focus spot on it; we’re lucky that most of our zoom lenses work quite well.

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Infrared light isn’t normally visible to the human eye, but in some circumstances it’s possible to capture it with your camera. The results of digital infrared photography can be truly stunning, lending a haunting appearance to outdoor scenes. The effect works particularly well on bright, sunny days in summer, when there are plenty of young, photosynthesising leaves on the trees.

Most digital cameras have an infrared blocker that’s great for regular photography but obviously not for infrared work. Removing the filter is a fairly complicated and expensive process, so don’t try to do it yourself.

A creative alternative is to add an infrared filter to your setup. Specialist models, such as the Hoya Infrared R72 we’ve used here, can work a treat. These screw into the front of the lens and cost from £35 ($57) depending on the thread size required.

The filter will block out most of the visible light, only allowing the infrared light to pass through. You’ll get pretty good results but will need to adapt the way you shoot, as the filter will be very dark and dense. Here’s what to do…

01 Check the weather
Whether you’re using a infrared filter or converted camera, it’s best to shoot on a bright day. If you do, the blue skies will be captured as sumptuous dark tones, while the photosynthesizing foliage will be recorded in white, almost snow-like hues.

02 Set up properly
If you’re using a filter, exposures will be long due to the density of the add-on – 30 seconds at ISO100 and f/8 on a sunny day wouldn’t be unusual. A sturdy tripod is essential. It’s also a good idea to lock the mirror in the up position and use a cable release or self timer, to minimise camera movement.

03 Focus and compose
It’s difficult to see through the filter when it’s attached to your lens, so you’ll have to compose and focus your scene first. The exposure is likely to be skewed a little too, so use the histogram to assess exposure. You should focus and expose manually too.

04 Prepare to process
Straight out of the camera, your infrared images will be bright red and need to be processed in the digital darkroom. You can make a simple black-and-white conversion, or swap the Red and Blue channels for striking and surreal shades.

05 Convert colours
Go to Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer, select the Red Output Channel and move the Red slider to 0 and the Blue slider to 100. Next, select the Blue Output Channel and set the Blue slider to 0 and the Red to 100. Go to Image > Adjustments and choose Auto Tone. This will give you a good starting point.

06 Go mono
Traditionally, infrared images are presented as black-and-white shots. Here, we’ve used a Black and White Adjustment Layer to make the conversion. Use a Curves Adjustment layer to tweak the contrast and darken the sky. To add to the ethereal glow, add a Gaussian Blur layer and set the Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Final Tip
Traditional infrared film shots can be quite grainy, and you can replicate this by adding digital noise from Photoshop’s Filter menu.

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Digital Camera’s 10-part series ‘Teach Yourself Photoshop’ builds into a complete video reference library. These easy-to-follow video guides will take you on a start-to-finish journey through perfecting your photos in the digital darkroom. In this video you’ll find out how to transform a landscape photograph by giving it an infrared film effect. You’ll also discover how to work with Layers, Levels and the Histogram in Photoshop Elements. Click the links to the right and build up the complete collection with each new issue of Digital Camera.

True infrared exposures require expensive specialist film to reveal a spectrum of colours that are normally invisible to the naked eye, but by using Adjustment Layers in Photoshop you can mimic the effect with ease. This tutorial will show you how to apply a monochrome effect and enhance it to give the appearance of infrared.

1. Convert to mono

Open the image and create a new Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer, and click the monochrome button to convert to black and white. Increase the Green slider to +200. Set red to -60 and blue to -40.

2. Darken the sky

Darken the sky by choosing Select>Colour Range and clicking on it. Create a new Channel Mixer Layer and click the monochrome button. Input the following values: R: 50 G: 50 and B: – 00.

3. Add some glow

To create the glow effect, duplicate the background Layer and apply a Gaussian blur of 2 to it – then change the Layer blending mode to lighten, with Opacity of 50%.

4. Finishing the effect

Reduce the Opacity of the sky Channel Mixer Layer to about 60%. Create a new Curves Adjustment Layer and place this as the top Layer, create a slight S-curve to increase the contrast of the image.