IR help needed

[rmh159]

I took this shot a bit ago with a Hoya R72 IR filter and a Nikon D50. I edited it in Photoshop for Levels and switched the Red/Blue channels for the false color.

So... friends/family saw this pic the other day and thought it was a winter pic taken after a snow fall (it was taken during an 80 day in late summer). I think by changing the sky to any non-blue color it would take away that snowfall reference but I can't figure out a good way to change the sky. Typically I select that color range and replace the entire thing so that the color cast goes through out the entire shot and looks more natural but I tried it and lost the trademark IR white foliage.

Any ideas, photoshop techniques or other critique for how I can get this shot to look less like a winter shot and more like a false color IR shot?

Please feel free to edit the pic.

 

[Arch]

It depends what colour you'd like the sky to be?.....
Some IR shots look good without the colour swap,.... how did it look?.... this would also make it look less wintery.... but i think your friends/family just arnt use to seeing colour swapped IR.

This image looks fine to me.... and i got similer comments from people who havent seen this technique before... most of my friends just thought it was some kind of ps wizardry!

There are a few things you could do tho.... one is to desaturate all the cyan and/or blue channels with a hue/saturation adjustment layer.
However.... (this gets confusing) it may in fact be the red channel that needs desaturating...... seeing as tho you've swapped the channels with the channel mixer.... this has happened to me a few times.

Another method would be to use the hue from a hue/saturation adjustment layer to alter the colour of the sky.... then layer mask it off from the rest of the image.

Its a common issue in alot of my IR photog to get rid of the cyan cast... you have a bit here around the building and the grass to the left... so i usually use the first procedure above to remove all the traces of cyan i dont want... and if you mask it to those areas, you wont get rid of any of the trees white IR effect.

 

[rmh159]

Cool thank for the advice. This is what I got which looks a bit better to me. I think I get how to change the sky color now too so... thanks a ton for the advice.

 

[oldnavy170]

I like the first sky better. I love the photo and I love the color changes you made.

 

[rmh159]

Thanks!!! Yeah i'm on the fence with which I like better. I love the saturation and contrast of the 2nd but the 1st is less "artificial" looking if that even makes sense. I want to use it for an 8x10 print so.... I'm thinking the saturated blue might look good in a black frame w/ a white border (I'm usually biased towards bright colors and strong contrasts). Hahaha who knows... I'll probably order both and flip a coin.

I definitely feel that 2nd one loses the snowfall affect though. Not sure at what cost though .... but it looks more like an affect than a snowfall. I'm sure the same people that thought it was a snowfall will now think it's 100% Photoshop'ed. Hahaha... it's good to hear the opinions of newbs though, after shooting for awhile I think our opinions become to jaded and biased. Anywho...

I like the first sky better. I love the photo and I love the color changes you made.

Archangel thanks for the IR advice a bit ago. This was my 2nd attempt at and after overexposing a few I was pretty pleased with this one. I love pics that raise questions and start conversations and I definitely feel like these do it.