Turning Hyper Color to Monochrome

I said the next thing we would talk about was Converting Hyper Color to Monochrome, so here we go.

When I started testing the new  Hyper Color Infrared last year,  I was surprised by the images that came straight out of the camera.  The color tones of the sky, the intense magentas, and reds made for cool looking images with very little work.  When I decided to try creating monochrome off of Hyper Color  I was surprised by how easy it was to great results. 

Let me show you a few examples.

This was made in Isla Mujeres Mexico at the ruins of Hacienda Mundaca, one of the locations for Isla Workshop.

It works well in Hyper Color out of the camera, and makes for a decent Monochrome as well.

This is Elissa, one of my favorite subjects I tested Hyper Color on.  

In Hyper Color, her skin retains a healthy glow which translates well in the Monochrome conversion.

SO, what’s involved in the Monochrome conversion?

Not much,  it’s very simple.

Let’s try one. 

Here’s a Hyper Color image made at Arches National Park, during the Moab workshop.

This is again the cool part about Hyper Color; this is right out of the camera and did not need a color channel swap. 

Let’s make it a Monochrome.

Once the image is open in Photoshop, go to Image, Adjustments, Back & White 

This will then bring up the B&W adjustment sliders.

This is where you are going to make your major adjustments.  Using each of the color sliders will allow you to darken or lighten that color tone.  

Here’s our image open with all the sliders set to their default settings.

The  sky has Cyan and a little Blue in it.  Now look at what happens when I adjust the Cyan and Blue sliders, darkening those color tones.

Now we’ve got that dark Black sky you expect to see in a B&W Infrared image.

Next, lets adjust the colors in the foliage and the rocks.

We have Magenta in the foliage and Red in the Rocks.  This is where you will need to decide what looks best to you; do you want the Magenta light or dark.  The same thing with the Red tones.

I decided to darken the Red from 40 to 13 and seriously darken the Magenta from 80 to -175.    And this was the result.

 

And that’s it, I just click OK, and I’m done.

Here is the original Hyper Color, and the Monochrome conversion.

AND . . . . it didn’t take but just a little time.  

Here’s a few more examples of how Hyper Color can look converted to Monochrome.

This is probably one of my favorite portrait type images I’ve made in hyper Color; and it looks equally good in Monochrome.

The process is easy, once you try it.  

Now I think you’ll see why I’m enjoying Hyper Color Infrared.    

If you want to see more of what I’ve created with Hyper Color Infrared, click here