Infrared Processing in Macphun (Skylum) Luminar 2018

For those photographers not locked into/who don't like the business model/who can't afford the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop environment, choices for processing images taken with an infrared converted camera have been limited. However, I saw that Macphun's (now Skylum) Luminar 2018 has a Channel Mixer and have been trying it out.

I should also point out that another rival system out there, DXO Photolab also has what they call a channel mixer in its optional extra, FilmPack 5. However, this is for changing the amount of the various channels in a conversion to black-and-white. It cannot be used for faux colour infrared conversion.

The Luminar Channel Mixer 'Filter'

In Luminar, the Channel Mixer works fine and in the same manner to that in Photoshop. For a newcomer to infrared, there is the added advantage that everything can be done to complete the image in this one app. The same cannot be said for Lightroom where a trip to Photoshop (or indeed to Luminar as a plug-in) is required.

A set of presets (which includes a channel mixer stage for faux colours and various black-and-white options) has recently been made available by Laurie Klein Photography for $9.95. I have tried them and they might produce a reasonable starting point for some people but I would find it just as easy to build my own presets using settings for Photoshop devised by Bob Vishneski (see my post of 12 June 2017). The problem with somebody else's presets for infrared is that what you get depends on the filter/sensor combination is in the converted camera.

One slight criticism of Luminar is that when things start getting complicated with lots of filters applied, there is a really noticeable lag from moving a slider to seeing the result appear on screen. That may be a property of my now old Mac but I do not have that problem in Lightroom and/or Photoshop.

For those looking for a different or much cheaper option for faux colour infrared images, Luminar 2018 has a lot to offer.

My current processing workflows for ‘faux’ colour Infrared photography with DSLRs

Readers of this blog will be aware that I have tried all sorts of different software and ways of processing ‘faux’ colour images from infrared-converted cameras. I came across the superb article* by Bob Vishneski here on the photographylife website and found his method to be the best, with a second (which he also describes) as a back up to provide greater flexibility on occasion. Both use Lightroom and Photoshop CC plus Nik Collections Silver EfexPro. Both depend on using RAW images.

At present I have two infrared-converted cameras. The first is a Nikon D7100 with a 720 nm filter; the second is a Nikon D80 with a 590 nm filter. Bob Vishneski makes the point that different camera/infrared filter replacement combinations need different settings. His preset developed for his D7100 with 720 nm filter from Kolarivision works fine with images from my D7100 with 720 nm filter (I do not know who did the conversion). I was able to modify the settings for that preset to use with images from my D80 with 590 nm filter simply by moving the Tint slider.

Because there may be months between sessions of processing infrared photographs I like to keep a note of my current standard methods (‘workflow’ in photography-speak; ‘protocol’ in a laboratory).

Vishneski Preset at Import Method

For those who want to use the Vishneski Preset at Import Method, which uses presets on import into Lightroom I show my protocol and the presets below. I cannot say standard protocol because there are stages in it where the final appearance can be affected and experimentation is possible. I do not describe some of the whys and wherefores, adding ‘structure’ with a luminosity blending mode overlay from Silver Efex Pro, for example because they are covered in the Vishneski article.

Camera Calibration Profile Method

The second method I had used before reading the Vishneski article. The Camera Calibration Profile Method relies on using an Adobe Custom DNG Profile for the camera/filter combination that can be applied in the Camera Calibration section of the Develop module in Lightroom before sending the image to Photoshop for the Channel Mixer stage to be applied. Like Bob Vishneski I found little difference between the two methods for the D7100/720 but that with the D80/590 the Vishneski Preset method (using my own tweaks for that combination) produced better results with ‘cleaner’ colours after the Channel Mixer stage in Photoshop. Using a custom DNG profile does have one advantage: in Lightroom, the white balance can be shifted by the Temperature and Tint sliders or by picking an area on the image to set a white balance (e.g. glass or foliage in sun, grass in shade, tarmac in sun, tarmac in shade etc) with marked effect on the image that emerges after the Channel Mixer stage in Photoshop.

Photoshop Channel Mixer Settings

Bob Vishneski has published two Photoshop Channel Mixer settings (shown below). The second one is here; I will not deal with the rest of that second article here suffice it to say that I have tried both of his and compared them with the traditional simple red-blue channel swap. I use what I have called his Type 1 channel mix for the D80/590 combination using both methods in Lightroom (results are better than the conventional swap and the Type 2 channel mix) and the Type 2 mix for the D7100/720 combination, again for both the Preset at Import Method and for the Camera Calibration Profile Method. I have all these Channel Mixer Settings set up as Actions in Photoshop along with the addition of a (Auto) Curves and Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers.

Workflows

Here are my Workflows or Protocols for the two methods:

Presets for the Preset at Import Method

Preset for my converted D7100-720 nm IR Filter

Preset for my converted  D80-590 nm Filter

*It is worth reading (and ignoring some of the inane) comments at the end of the article.

Final Cut Pro X with Lightroom. Yes, then No, now Yes with a workaround

On 23 November 2016, I noted with regret that I could not find a way of importing a folder of jpgs to the new Photos and Audio Sidebar in FCPX 10.3. Before 10.3 I could do this using a Published Smart Folder from Lightroom.

I now realise, having looked up the various import procedures for 10.3, that it is possible to import folders and individual files from the Published Smart Folder by dragging from the standard Apple Finder to an event or directly to the timeline.

The two convenient ways to do this are (quoting from the Apple manual):

• Select a file, Command-click to select multiple files, or select a folder of files, then drag the file or files from the Finder to the event.
• Select a file, Command-click to select multiple files, then drag the file or files to a project in the timeline.

This method is not so convenient as in 10.2 because it adds an extra step.

And, just in case you are wondering, the latest update (10.3.2) which I installed this morning still does not restore the functionality in this respect of 10.2 although files of audio folders can now be added to the photos and audio sidebar.

Aperture to Lightroom in 2015; now it’s to Lightroom CC/Lightroom Mobile and Photoshop CC

The last full-fat version of Photoshop I used was CS, introduced in 2003. As later editions of Photoshop Elements included more features that I needed than CS I changed to that much cheaper product. In recent years with Aperture and then, instead, Lightroom, I have done very little that could not be done with Aperture or, now, Lightroom (with Nik and other plug-ins), with the occasional use of Photoshop Elements with the plug-in Element+. However, with infrared work I have been worried that the restriction to 8-bit processing was putting jagged gaps in the histogram when Levels were used to tone the pretty flat images that emerge from an IR-converted camera. Secondly, although possible, developing Actions with the help of Elements+ is a hassle compared with Photoshop proper. Because of the 8-bit problem and because I often want to experiment with different colour temperatures before conversion of faux-colour IR images using the channel mixer (or the hue slider in Viveza 2) and, therefore, generate a number of variants as quickly and as automatically as possible, I took the plunge back into the full-version Photoshop world, even though I dislike the software subscription business model. So now I have Lightroom CC (which apart from the import from files bit I like greatly) and Photoshop CC, with Nik Software plugins.

Photoshop CC is, to my delight, brilliant and so much easier to use than the early versions, including CS. The modern algorithms are so good that I have reprocessed some difficult, images scanned from positives, negatives and prints with considerably more success. I have been helped with modern Photoshop by internet tutorials and Martin Evening’s book (a hard copy is much easier to look things up in than a Kindle version).

Having now used Lightroom 6/CC and Photoshop CC, I can see why Apple dropped Aperture. The intellectual and capital investment needed just to keep up (and to work round any problems with intellectual property) must have been so daunting that it was just not worth Apple’s while.

Also, Lightroom Mobile works extremely well, at least to show photographs on an iPad or iPhone (the only way I would want to use it).

The most annoying problem with using Lightroom compared with Aperture, as I have remarked before, is in not being able to import photographs directly from there into Final Cut Pro X. However, I have read of a workaround which I am about to test……..

Out with Aperture; In with Lightroom

Being completely underwhelmed by Apple's new Photos application, I grasped the nettle and bought the new version of Lightroom, Lightroom 6, as a download from Amazon. I strongly resented having to do so because the seamless link between Final Cut Pro X and Photos or Aperture for moving stills into video is (was) something I use often. With Aperture having been discontinued and withdrawal of support in the offing, my hopes were resting on Photos having plug-in routes to Photoshop and Nik Software etc. But no, the dumbed down, noddy-in-toyland Photos has no such feature. That may come in the future but given such a poor start I cannot see many photographers bothering to wait. And if it is planned to have features added in the future, why release the program now? Have Apple learnt nothing from the incomplete-at-launch Final Cut Pro X debacle?

I had Lightroom 6 downloaded and installed in under 15 minutes (we do have pretty fast broadband here). I tried the automatic Aperture to Lightroom transfer but I did not want the file structure being set up, cancelled the process, deleted the photographs in Lightroom and the files in Finder. and started all over again—this time manually. A rough estimate was that it took 12 hours to export each event from Aperture to a new file and to then import the contents of that file into Lightroom.

I am getting to grips with Lightroom. Thus far I have not encountered any problems, other than the internet link to Help being dead. The lens correction list appeared to be measly until I found the way of finding and downloading other lens corrections profiles. This I did for two of my much-used Nikon lenses.

I have Photoshop Elements as the main external editor and Nik Software plug-ins installed. There is a choice of secondary external editors; I have Nikon Capture NX2 at present because it provides my secondary means of channel swapping infrared photographs.

To sum up so far. Can I do all I wish to do with normal (i.e. non infrared) photographs or scans? Yes. Can I use workflows from Lightroom to process infrared images using either Photoshop Elements and Elements+ or Capture NX2? Yes. Can I apply lens corrections in Lightroom 6 that I previously used PTLens* to achieve? Yes. Can I use the noise reduction software in Lightroom or the Nik suite to improve scans of prints on 1950s textured paper that I previously used Neat Image to achieve? Yes.

The only feature I have lost is the direct import of stills into Final Cut Pro X. For that I shall use, in part, the new video plus stills import option in FCPX. For convenience, I will have to export some stills from Lightroom and import them either into Photos or Aperture.

Changing from Aperture to Lightroom does offer the opportunity to use LRTimelapse instead of my current workflow (which does involve steps in Aperture) to make Timelapse videos using my Nikon D700. The procedure looks powerful if a little complicated but if LRTimelapse works as well as is promised, then the move to Lightroom will bring an added bonus.

So, Aperture now lies unused in my Applications Folder while Lightroom 6 joins Photoshop Elements, Final Cut Pro X and Motion in the Dock. After a quick look, is Lightroom 6 better than Aperture 3? In many ways it is but in some ways, Aperture had the edge.

*PTLens and other programs can be used as the secondary editor if needed, as can other well-known image-editing software.