Still chasing that perfect (IR) false color purple look… This time, I tried following Fedia’s approach with a blue-green channel swap.
The results turned out pretty cool. But I had only a few stray sun rays and no clear blue sky. I suspect the sky would lean cyan with this setup, not a classic deep blue. There might still be room for improvement there.
Here’s what I used:
– Didymium filter
– LEE Oklahoma Yellow
– A weird hot mirror: The IRC650 Visible (650 nm IR cut) – it probably leaks some IR
I really like the outcome.
The trick is not to go too cold with white balance. I set it to around 2000 K and tint +10, then opened the file and swapped the blue and green channels in the channel mixer. After that, I fine-tuned the white balance again.
If you use a custom white balance that already fits too well, the colors tend to get weird.
But like this? It just works — for reasons I don’t quite understand.
UPDATE: The sky is blueish cyan, which is cool:
Is this already the perfect purple? Maybe! In any case, it’s extremely budget-friendly. I think there’s IR involved, which is why you need a full-spectrum camera – but apart from that, you’re just using filters that cost maybe 10 to 15 dollars each.
