As I probably once alluded to, I am looking for a false color IR style that will produce blue trees. I have tried many things. For a long time it seemed that the combination of Hoya Green X1 (a real secret weapon for IR photographers) and Tiffen Yellow 8 would be promising. The tones in the vegetation are pretty, but too reddish. A change to more blue is too costly and thus not optimal for me.
I then tested other combinations. I picked up a Swatchbook from Lee Filters. This is something like a Swiss Army knife for false color photography fans. The catalog covers the entire range of filters, is inexpensive and is wonderful for finding out new IR styles.
Of particular promise here were the somewhat more obscure yellows, browns, and oranges that have names like “Ald Gold” or “Urban Sodium.” After extensive clicking with all sorts of variants, I came across the one that was best suited in my eyes: Deep Amber, which is a darker yellow tone.
Together with Hoya X1 resulted in photos characterized by cyan-blue skies and purple vegetation. Since the purple is closer to blue than the pale magenta of the 8/X1 combo, the change to blue was relatively easy. What was unfavorable for me was the magenta coloring of yellows. Therefore, a little shifting was necessary here as well.
So I did the following: In the Raw Converter minus 50 at the Purple tones in the Color Mixer, then in the Channel Mixer at Green a change (Red 50 and Green 50). That’s all.
The only problem is that this seems to work so well only with my Tokina 11-16mm lens. It is so that this lens filters out more IR light than other lenses. Thus, the sceneries become more “natural” and the IR-absorbing objects become darker.
So the search for the optimal method to create blue trees continues.
