In this tutorial I'll show you how to simulate black and white infrared
film. Infrared film is sensitive to both ultraviolet and infrared
wavelength light. Green foliage reflects a lot of infrared light, which
is why infrared film is often used to take "supernatural" landscapes.
Cameras do not focus infrared light the same way they do visible light,
which is one reason infrared photographs tend to be a little blurry.
Black and white infrared film is also generally very sensitive (large
grain), which is why B&W infrared photos look grainy.
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Here is the original example image, loaded into The GIMP.
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Step 1: convert the image to
B&W.
If you do a simple mode change to grayscale
(Image/Mode/Grayscale), as I did here, be sure to change back to
RGB mode (Image/Mode/RGB).
Note: if you have the
Channel
Mixer plug-in, be sure to try it first. Try boosting
the green channel significantly at the expense of red and blue
(experiment to see what gives the best results for your
particular image).
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Step 2: follow the instructions for a
Gaussian Blur Overlay,
except set the layer blend mode to "Screen"
instead of "Overlay".
A blur radius of 5-20 pixels, according to your preference,
ought to do the trick.
If the highlights are blown out after this, try any of the
following:
- (best) use Levels or Curves on the Blur Overlay layer.
- (good) adjust the opacity of the Blur Overlay layer in the
Layers dialog;
- use a layer mask to protect the highlights, as
described in the blur overlays tutorial (Note: this
doesn't seem to work as well with B&W images, at
least for me).
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Step 3 (optional): add some grain.
Note: I wanted a strong grain effect, so I didn't use a film
grain layer mask.
That's it!
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