Digital Camera World » retro effects

Photoshop Infrared Effects: how to make colour scenes look like infrared film

jmeyer — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:08:16 +0000

In this tutorial we’ll show you a simple-to-follow technique for creating Photoshop infrared effects by shifting colours to give the retro photography effect of infrared film.

With wonderful colour shifts, glowing foliage and deep dark blues, infrared photography offers lots of creative potential.

Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, but can be recorded either by using an IR filter, or by converting an old DSLR’s sensor (an irreversible modification). Typically, digital infrared images captured in this way are processed so that green foliage goes very bright and blue skies very dark.

Strictly speaking, the look of digital infrared in colour is not the same as that of infrared film, which records infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. But it’s a look that’s become very popular for creative landscape photography.

You don’t need to make irreparable changes to your sensor or buy an IR filter to get this look though. You can get realistic digital infrared effects with a few tweaks in Camera Raw and a little help from Photoshop.

Our original shot

Here we’ll show you how to adjust tones to make the characteristic colour shifts of infrared photography. This encompasses several key tools and commands in Camera Raw, from interactive colour control with the Targeted Adjustment tool to subtle shifts in saturation with the Camera Calibration panel.

Infrared film usually requires  a long exposure, so any movement within the scene becomes blurred. We’ll reflect this by adding blur to the clouds, using the Radial Blur filter in Photoshop to suggest a wonderful velvety motion.

Photoshop infrared effects step-by-step

01 Brighten the shadows
Launch Adobe Bridge, then navigate to your start image – click the Thumbnail in Bridge and choose Open in Camera Raw. In the Basic panel on the right of the interface set Shadows to +64 to brighten the foreground. Set Vibrance to +37 to boost the colour.

02 Drag the greens
Grab the Targeted Adjustment tool from the Tools palette, then right-click and choose Luminance. Click on the grass, then drag up to lighten the tones. You’ll see the Green and Yellow sliders in the HSL panel move – keep dragging until they’re both around +100.

03 Lower the saturation
With the Targeted Adjustment tool active, right-click and choose Saturation. This time click over the grass and drag downwards to lower the saturation of the Greens and Yellows. Keep dragging until the Yellows are about -90 and the Greens are around -80.

04 Adjust the Hue
Right-click again, but this time choose Hue. Click over the grass and drag to the left until the Yellow and Green sliders are set to -100. Now the grass will look bright and grey. The next step is to add a few more unusual colour shifts.

05 Tweak the colour profile
Click on the Camera Calibration panel and go to the Colour sliders. Set Shadows Tint to -23. In Red Primary, set Hue to +45 and Saturation to +15. In Green Primary, set Hue to -20 and Saturation to -76. In Blue Primary, set Hue to +5 and Saturation to +18.

06 Set a pin
Click on the Adjustment Brush in the toolbar, then go to the settings on the right. Set Exposure to -0.45 and make sure all the other sliders are set to their default values (double-click a slider to reset it). Click in the middle of the sky to set a pin.

07 Paint over the sky
At the bottom of the settings, click Show Mask, then click the colour box and choose a bright, recognisable colour. Set Brush Size to 10 and Feather to 100, then paint over the sky. If you need to erase any parts of the mask, check Erase and paint to remove it.

08 Boost the land
Check New at the top of the Adjustment Brush settings, then set Exposure to +0.55, Contrast to +18 and Shadows to +16. Click over the land to set a second pin, then check Show Mask and paint over the land. Use ] and [ to resize the brush tip as you paint.

09 Mask the grass
Check New again, then add another pin over the grass. Set Exposure to +0.20 and Shadows to +30, then click the Colour box and choose a light pink tone (set Hue to 327 and Saturation to +16). Zoom in closer, then paint over any areas that were green.

PAGE 1: Photoshop infrared effects steps 1-9
PAGE 2: Photoshop infrared effects steps 10-18

How to make Photoshop X-ray effects

jmeyer — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:37:44 +0000

X-ray photography can be much more than a security measure or a way for doctors and dentists to see inside us. Some photographers and radiographers have used the equipment and film to make X-rays to create striking and vibrant studies of flowers and other similar subjects. While the results can be spectacular, most of us don’t have an X-ray machine tucked away in the back of the cupboard, so in this tutorial we’re going to take a look at creating a Photoshop X-ray effect.

The characteristic negative tones and cyan hues that are typical of many X-rays are a wonderful way to give your images a creative twist. We’ll use Photoshop to convert our image to black and white, invert the tones, and then add a coloured tint and a subtle glow.

Using a non-destructive and re-editable workflow with Adjustment Layers and Smart Objects, you’ll also master some essential Photoshop skills that’ll come in useful for other projects, so let’s see how it’s done.

01 Shoot it
Lots of objects work well with this technique, from kitchen utensils and plastic toys to the old Nikon F3 we’ve used here. Photograph your object on a white background – it will end up being black once the image is inverted. For an X-ray-style glow, the lighting from a ring flash is perfect, so if you’ve got one, attach it to your lens and use it.

02 Process in Raw
Download the image and open it in Adobe Camera Raw, or use the file ‘xray_before.NEF’. Go to the HSL/Grayscale tab and check the Convert to Grayscale box. Return to the Basic panel and set the Highlights slider to -99, the Shadows slider to 75 and Clarity to about 50 to eke out as much detail as possible.

03 Invert the tones
Duplicate the background layer and go to Image > Adjustments > Invert, or hit Ctrl/Cmd+I to do this. At this point, it’s a good idea to select the Dodge and Burn tools from the Tools palette to selectively darken and lighten parts of the image, making sure there are no deep shadow or glowing highlight areas.

04 Add a colour tint
Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Solid Color, and from the colour picker, choose a bluish X-ray tint – R41 G51 B120 is a good starting point. At the top of the Layers panel, selectHard Light from the Blend Mode dropdown menu. It’s worth experimenting with some of the other Blend Modes to see which effect you like best.

05 Tweak the tones
To alter the tones, create a Curves Adjustment Layer and bend the upper half of the curve upwards to make  the light tones a little lighter. Place an anchor half way down so the dark tones remain unaffected. Now use a Vibrance Adjustment Layer to tweak the intensity of the colours. Here we’ve reduced it a little.

06 A final glow
Hit Shift+Alt+Ctrl/Cmd+E to merge all of the separate layers into a new layer at the top of the layer stack.  Convert the layer into a Smart Object and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter a blur of 70 pixels. To finish off, change the Layer Blend Mode to Soft Light and set the Layer Opacity to 25%, or to a value that suits your subject.

13 best free photography apps for iPhone

jmeyer — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 10:00:06 +0000

The best camera is the one you have on you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of the snapper in your pocket. Apple’s iPhone is the most widely used “camera” on Flickr, while the number of photography apps for iPhone has probably reached the thousands by now.

But you don’t have to shell out hard earned cash (or iTunes credit) to pimp out your iPhone, as we take a look at the best free photography apps for iPhone right here.

All of the free photography apps for iPhone in this list were available at the time of writing.

Best Photography Apps for iPhone: Instagram

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably already heard of Instagram, but it’s still worth a mention here in case you haven’t already checked it out.

A neat way to funk up your photos with retro photography effects and borders, you can also share the resulting images on the Instagram network, via Twitter or Facebook.

Find out more about Instagram

No. 1: Instagram
No. 2: Photo Editor by Aviary
No. 3: PicStitch
No. 4: Muzy
No. 5: Photoshop Express
No. 6: SP Photo Fix Lite
No. 7: Facebook Camera
No. 8: Pudding Camera
No. 9: Polarize
No. 10: Piictu
No. 11: Magic Hour Lite
No. 12: DMD Panorama
No. 13: PowerCam

How to add flare in Photoshop for a cool retro photography look

jmeyer — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

These days, we try to avoid lower contrast and flare, but it’s part of the charm of most retro photography. However, achieving flare is quite a hard effect to replicate unless you’re shooting in ideal light conditions, with the sun in, or close to the edge of, the frame. To save time and effort, here’s how to add a convincing flare effect in Photoshop Elements.

It helps if you start with an image where the sun is positioned close to the edge of the frame (even if there isn’t any flare) as the lighting will be consistent with the flare, so the effect will be more convincing.

Step 1: Adjust Levels
Open your original image – our download ours seen here, flare_before.jpg from http://goo.gl/tPqrE – and open it in Photoshop Elements. Click on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and select Levels. To lighten the highlights, drag the right-hand slider to the left. Drag the middle slider to the left to lighten the midtones.

Step 2: Colour adjustment
With the basic tones adjusted you now need to adjust the individual colour channels. Select Red from the drop-down menu in the Levels Adjustment Layer and drag the middle slider to the left to a value of around 1.30. Select Green and again drag the middle slider to the left, this time to around 1.10.

Step 3: Stretch the canvas
To position the ‘sun’ in the correct position you need to expand the canvas size by going to Image>Resize>Canvas Size. Choose Percent from the drop-down menu and enter 130%, then make sure that the Anchor graphic shows the square in the middle of the arrows. Click OK.

Step 4: Add flare
Duplicate the Background layer by pressing Ctrl+J, then go to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. In the new window, choose 105mm Prime and set the Brightness to 120%. Drag the cross-hairs that indicate the flare origin up to the top right and click OK. To finish, crop the image to the original size.

Top Tip: Try a filter
Using a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer is a simple but effective way to tone to your image. Simply add it to the top of the layer stack and choose from a huge range of cool or warm filters, setting an  Opacity of around 20%.