Infrared Film Tutorial

Infrared film (The term "infrared" literally means "below red”) used alongside an infrared filter allows the camera to block out the usual spectrum of light, allowing only infrared light to expose the film. The result is a false colour or black and white effect, the effect is particularly stunning with shots of foliage, where the reflections from leaves and grass are made visible and give the impression of a dream-like scene.

Step 1 - Duplicate the Background Layer
The first thing you need to do in creating this effect is to duplicate this layer, do that with the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+J (Win) / Command+J (Mac), which tells Photoshop to give a copy of this layer directly above it. Photoshop automatically names the layer "Layer 1", which tells you nothing about it, so double-click directly on the name of the layer and rename it to "infrared".

Step 2 - Select the Green Channel in the Channels Panel
Go to your Channels panel (it's grouped in beside the Layers panel) and click on the Green channel to select it. This will turn your image temporarily black and white. You are going to blur this green channel next.

Step 3 - Apply the Gaussian Blur Filter to the Green Channel
With the Green channel selected in the Channels palette, go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Blur, and then select Gaussian Blur to bring up Photoshop's Gaussian Blur dialog box.

Drag the slider bar at the bottom of the Gaussian Blur dialog box left or right to increase or decrease the amount of blur you'll be applying. Your image will most likely be much higher resolution, especially if it came from a fairly recent digital camera, so you'll need to use a higher Radius value; a Radius value of about 10 pixels gives a nice soft blur effect. Add a good amount of blurring while still being able to make out the basic details of the image.

Step 4 - Change The Blend Mode Of The Infrared Layer To "Screen".
Now that you have applied the Gaussian Blur filter to the Green channel, switch back to the Layers palette and, with the "infrared" layer still selected, change the blend mode of the layer from Normal to Screen. To do that, go up to the top of the Layers palette and click on the down-pointing arrow directly to the right of the word "Normal", which brings up a list of available layer blend modes. Click on "Screen" to select it.

Already at this stage, the image is looking pretty cool, but you are not quite done yet. You are going to be using a Channel Mixer adjustment layer next.

Step 5 - Add A Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer
You need to bring up a Channel Mixer adjustment layer at this point, and you can do that by clicking on the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and selecting Channel Mixer from the list.

In the "Source Channels" section, set Red to -50%, Green to 200%, and Blue to the same as red, -50%. The general rule with these values in the Channel Mixer is that you want to keep the total value of all three channels at 100%, otherwise you'll either be losing contrast in the image or losing detail in the highlights, which is why, in order to set the Green value to 200%, we lowered both the Red and Blue values to -50%, giving us our 100%.

Finally, click the Monochrome checkbox in the bottom left corner of the dialog box to keep the image in grayscale mode. Click OK when you're done.

Step 6 - Lower the Opacity of the "Infrared" Layer
At this point, the infrared effect is too intense. Let's reduce it by lowering the opacity of the "infrared" layer. First, click on the "infrared" layer in the Layers palette to select it, then go up to the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers palette, hover your mouse directly over the word "Opacity" to turn your mouse cursor into the "scrubby slider" icon, then click and drag to the left to lower the opacity value.

The effect is pretty much complete at this point, but it's too clean. Infrared photos typically have a lot of grain in them, so to finish off the effect; we're going to add some noise.

Step 7 - Add a New Layer above the Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer
Click on the Channel Mixer adjustment layer in the Layers palette to select it, then use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Ctrl+N (Win) / Shift+Command+N (Mac) to bring up Photoshop's New Layer dialog box.
Name the new layer "Grain" and then click OK. Photoshop will add a new blank layer named "Grain" above the Channel Mixer in the Layers palette.

Step 8 - Fill the "Grain" Layer with White
Press the letter D on your keyboard to reset Photoshop's foreground and background colours to their defaults of black and white, respectively. Then, with the "Grain" layer selected in the Layers palette, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Backspace (Win) / Command+Delete (Mac) to quickly fill this layer with solid white. The image in the document window will temporarily be hidden from view.

Step 9 - Add Noise to This Layer
With the "Grain" layer still selected, go up to the Filter menu at the top of the screen, select Noise, and then select Add Noise to bring up the "Add Noise" filter dialog box. Set the Amount to 20%, set Distribution to Uniform, and make sure Monochromatic at the bottom is checked.

This adds our grain to the image, but problem is, you still can't see the image below the grain. You will fix that next.

Step 10 - Change the Blend Mode Of The "Grain" Layer To "Multiply"
Just as you did for the "infrared" layer, you are going to change the blend mode of this "Grain" layer, except this time, instead of changing it to "Screen", we're going to change it to "Multiply". With the "Grain" layer selected, go back up to the blend mode options at the top of the Layers palette and this time choose Multiply from the list.

As soon as you change the blend mode to Multiply, the image becomes visible once again through the grain, giving you the final effect.