IR Channel swapping in ACR/Lightroom

[Jameel Hyder]

One of the things I struggled with is to get the right RAW setting in ACR (I don't use Lightroom, I know ...). The reason being the channel swapping is done in Photoshop. So often I'd go back to ACR and tweak the white balance get back to PS. Rinse and repeat. Over time one gets a feel for it and the # of iterations come down significantly. But what if we can do the channel swap in ACR itself? I finally found a way to do it. This may not be news to many of you long term IR gurus, but hopefully this will help newbies like me.

There are two approaches to this. One is to use LUTs (Lookup tables). I'll go over the other one. This may sound convoluted, but it is pretty straight forward. And this can be saved as a preset and loaded for one or more files.

After loading the RAW file in ACR and applying the IR profile, click on the Graduated Filter icon (5th from the top in the latest CC).

Now click on an area outside of the image, hold the shift key and drag out.

Now go to the hue adjustment and drag the source all the way to the left, or just enter -180.

Now if you want to save this as a preset, make sure to select Local Adjustment->Graduated Filters and any other thing that you would like to automatically apply.

Enjoy

 

[JimFox]

How interesting Jameel.

Though I will admit I like to sometimes tweak the adjustments in Photoshop with the Channel Mixer when Channel Swapping. But this looks interesting, it's late here, but I will have to give this a try tomorrow.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Another advantage of this method is that since the hue adjustment is a slider, you can play with it to get the look you want. Also you are working with RAW data.

 

[AlanLichty]

This technique seems more effective with 590nm than 720nm at least from some quick experiments on my end. 720nm processing is a bit different than 590nm and I have found that I can go directly into PS without presets or camera profiles. No way that works with 590nm RAW but this seems to have promise. I will play some more.

 

[JimFox]

Another advantage of this method is that since the hue adjustment is a slider, you can play with it to get the look you want. Also you are working with RAW data.

Oh gotcha, with the hue slider you could adjust the hue slightly one way or another.

 

[JimFox]

It works, but mine is showing heavy cyan which I don't like. Maybe it's different on different scenes? It's very simple to do, your instructions are good.

 

[JimFox]

Okay, I got it... I skipped some of my normal steps since I was just following what you had written. It wasn't until I went into Photoshop with one to check the Channel Mixer on the Channel Swap that I realized the image I had just posted, I didn't do the Custom WB first before doing the Hue adjustment with the Grad tool.

The steps to do with this are:

1. Load Custom Profile
2. Do the Custom WB (Draw a Box over the image with the WB Dropper)
3. Click on the Grad tool above the image and with the shift key drag it above the image
4. Change to the Hue to either -180 or +180 (it's the same result)

 

[Jameel Hyder]

I actually do step 2 last. The other 3 are saved as a preset that I simply load. I have one for channel swap and one without. After the WB I do the rest of adjustments before opening in PS for the final edits.