Infrared processing workflow

[Graham]

Does anyone know where I can find a tutorial to help develop infrared images on Affinity?

I've seen the emulation video that is readily available but I wondered if there was a walk through somewhere relating to images taken with an IR filter/ IR converted camera?

 

Thanks

[DWright]

We have created this video tutorial on Infrared emulation 

[Graham]

Thanks for your reply, however that is the video I mentioned..

[Graham]

If anyone could help with this, it would be appreciated 

[Saijin_Naib]

Depends what look you're going for. I've been using Affinity and Serif PhotoPlus both for my Infrared/Full Spectrum photography work.

Do you mean channel-swapping or something else?

[Graham]

Thanks for your reply, Saijin.

I actually ask on behalf of my teenage daughter who is into photography.

She liked the look of IR images so I bought her a Hoya filter. When, however she comes to process her images with Affinity, they look nothing like expected. 

I'm a bit old fashioned and would want to turn to a manual for help but the only one available is £30 and may not even cover the subject of IR.

On Googling, all we can find is tutorials, help and advice using PHOTOSHOP or LIGHTROOM, not Affinity.

My question is: If IR images can be processed with Affinity, how is it done? A step by step guide would be great, and would save me forking out for PHOTOSHOP, which is what my daughter now wants!

[Graham]

[emmrecs01]

@Graham

Have you seen this page on the Affinity Spotlight site, where James Ritson, one of the developers of Affinity Photo, writes about IR photography?

Jeff

[GaryBarnett]

On 10/2/2018 at 10:17 AM, Graham said:

@Graham

I feel your pain. If your daughter does have a camera that was converted for infrared use (which camera, what IR spectrum filter is installed and which model, for example is it a mirrorless or dslr with live view or is it without live view - all this helps me guide her how to shoot images that she hopes for), all you need to do is use less of Ivan’s tutorial because she’s not simulating anything, she’s going to make true infrared 

She needs to open the image and go through the simple red/blue channel swapping adjustment layer and then the bloom adjustment to taste after she’s made any adjustments in HSL to tweak the colors further to taste (I don’t like seeing the purple in Ivan’s first example although the green in the shade is truly accurate to how the original Kodak IR transparency film looked. The pinks are close, and here are two reasons I need to know about the camera. 

1) if the camera has a full spectrum (UV, IR and visible color) filter, she has the most versatile camera that only has the drawback of needing a polarizing filter (to darken water and increase the sky’s contrast between clouds and zenith) in addition to an IR filter (usually 720nm). This is both time consuming and also includes the important need to keep her filters dust free, which is no big deal if using the same lens and filters for all the IR shots, removing them for full spectrum color, or if there’s a filter set already on very lens of interest to her (usually necessary because the ring size differs among all lenses from every wide angle to long telephoto.

If the camera is mirrorless or has live view, the filters required will not affect visibility when composing and focusing - and a converted camera has had the focus difference mentioned in the tutorials you’ve seen already taken care of in camera by the conversion house.

2) if there is a specific frequency IR filter in the camera instead of full spectrum, (which is not actually a filter but a replacement for whaat all cameras are built with that essentially blocks infrared and UV light) she’ll need only the polarizing filter and probably a good tripod given how much time a good exposure might take, especially if HDR bracketing is going to be used either manually or automatically. The tripod has an added benefit lost from the days of analogue large film (4x5,  8x10 or even larger) and that’s the sense of thoughtful deliberation in choosing, framing and exposing correctly the way the great pioneers like Edward Weston and my favorite IR master Minor White did.

Hope this gets her started!

The attached are images by Minor White and of course I realize these are B&W, Byrd these we what first inspired me  to begin my own strange trip!

[GaryBarnett]

On 7/11/2017 at 4:31 AM, cwmbrancon said:

Hi there,

 

I am looking to create editable vectors from artwork (primarily shapes and lettering) created in Procreate on the iPad.

 

In Adobe Illustrator there is an 'image trace' function that does this.

 

Is there a similar function in Affinty design or Affinity Photo?

 

Thanks

Try using #imaengine to create editable outlines and fills until this feature is added to the apps in question. Hope this helps. It’s very cheap especially considering how much affinity costs. 

[GaryBarnett]

On 9/16/2018 at 12:46 AM, Graham said:

Thanks for your reply, Saijin.

I actually ask on behalf of my teenage daughter who is into photography.

She liked the look of IR images so I bought her a Hoya filter. When, however she comes to process her images with Affinity, they look nothing like expected. 

I'm a bit old fashioned and would want to turn to a manual for help but the only one available is £30 and may not even cover the subject of IR.

On Googling, all we can find is tutorials, help and advice using PHOTOSHOP or LIGHTROOM, not Affinity.

My question is: If IR images can be processed with Affinity, how is it done? A step by step guide would be great, and would save me forking out for PHOTOSHOP, which is what my daughter now wants!

@Graham 

It seems you may NOT  have purchased an IR converted camera for your daughter after i given the comment above about having bought her a filter (which one?), so if that’s the case she can’t shoot IR correctly. She needs the converted camera, or she’ll have to dispense with the filter you bought and create simulated IR images as the very good aforementioned tutorial show. And there’s simply no need for a manual - not that they are likely to exist. 

Why stop using the (i’m guessing here) IR filter on her camera? Because all it does is block the wavelengths of visible light, but there’s still a filter mounted on her sensor that blocks all the infrared light. Get the “picture”? Not much light of any kind will make it through, and the colors will be pretty useless. Us all you gave her was a deep red (25) filter, there’s slightly more color available but you still have the wrong setup.

The least expensive solution is to use the excellent IR simulation tutorial step by step (you can provide her with a text file or printout delineating the few steps involved.. it’s ok for someone just getting into IR.

However if you’re serious about giving her a leg up, you CAN pay a company such as LifePixel to remove the IR blocking filter and install their Supercolor filter (which gives the most flexibility in post processing in Affinity) for roughly $250.00 plus shipping both ways. Call them first. LifePixel.com

Best of luck. Hope you have a chance to see this and if you do, feel free to ask anything else.

Gary

[Pavel+]

I shoot a lot of IR with a life pixel modified 590nm Fuji X-E2.  As earlier mentioned the filters are only good for modified cameras and the filter choice has to be a higher cutoff than the chosen modification.  Simulated IR looks nothing like real infra-red as of course it is not picking up and the IR light in a scene.

 

A 590nm like mine lets a lot of the IR spectrum in, which has plusses and minuses, depending on what you are after.  If you like false color and. to do a lot of manipulation to the contrast, then having a camera with a 665nm, a 590nm or even full spectrum is needed, but the downside is that you have to be much more careful with the custom white balance and you have to of course use a channel mixer to swap the Red and Blue channels and then post process the false color to suit your taste.  If found that I normally go for the look of regular infra red or deep IR and so I plan to later have a second camera converted to 720nm and also get a 830nm cutoff filter for my most often used lenses.

It should be pointed out that in real infra red, the choice of lens is critical.  Some work beautifully while other lenses are almost unusable due to hot spots.  Generally the more expensive the lens - the worse the IR performance and most of the time primes tend to work better than zooms, though some zooms are very good.

So the basic workflow is that you should bring a grey card with you and meter a custom white balance off of it, while it is reflecting the sunlight that you will be exposing for.  Sometimes metering folliiage yields better results but since they are always different I set two custom white balances for every landscape and shoot both so that I can choose the one that is better for my purposes when post processing.  You can't tell in camera.  It is hugely important to set a custom white balance.  The auto white balance of some cameras will give poor results, while for most they will give terrible results.  What you get home, and get the files into your computer, the first thing you do is a go to the channel mixer, select the blue channel and push the reds to 100%. Then go select your red channel and slide the blues to 100%. That will give you the file you need to post process you false color to taste, or to desaturate any number of ways to your idea of the perfect black & white IR photograph.

I have always used Capture One for my normal work, but in my IR photography I have been very frustrated in some of the editing suites. that do have channel mixers with how clunky they have been.  I no longer use any adobe products and so I came here to see what Affinity Photo is all about and to see if does include a channel mixer that will work well with infra red and to see how good the conversions turn out.  In that sense, this thread is of high interest to me.

[firstdefence]

Pavel+ you can download a Trial version of Affinity Photo 

[Pavel+]

I didn't know when I wrote this that there was a trial version of Affinity photo, as I had first seen it on the Apple store, but have since downloaded it and will try it out.  Yesterday, quite unexpectedly, I sold off all my Olympus gear and most of my Fuji bodies, including the IR modified X-e2.  I happened to walk into my local camera store and they had a used D500 and X-Pro2 so I upgraded, simplified and changed photographic course.  Now it will be a while before I buy another IR modified body, probably in the Nikon Z range in a year or so, and thus my need for Affinity has just been put on hold.