I’d like to get started in UV/ IR

[ArthurDent]

Channel swapping in Ps?

Take it you are making NEF's... Not JPEGS.

Ps CC now has a dedicated IR setting in channel swapping, I have tried tweaking that with reasonable results.

I’m using Lightroom 6 and developing the image as a B&W. Yes, I am taking  NEFs.  I’m not a subscriber to PS CC, although if I get into ir enough, I might have to subscribe in order to get the channel swapping capability soI can do false color skies.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

A sigh from the side line: channel swapping to get blue skies is such a trite cliché. Do take the opportunity to explore the full potential of IR instead of falling back on conventions .....

If on the other hand you actually prefer IR blue sky, no need for channel swapping to achieve that goal. A decent raw converter and some basic PS skills will sort that for you. Or the simplest of all solutions, use the B+W 403 filter (on a full-spectrum camera). You get blue sky straight off the camera.

[ArthurDent]

A sigh from the side line: channel swapping to get blue skies is such a trite cliché. Do take the opportunity to explore the full potential of IR instead of falling back on conventions .....

If on the other hand you actually prefer IR blue sky, no need for channel swapping to achieve that goal. A decent raw converter and some basic PS skills will sort that for you. Or the simplest of all solutions, use the B+W 403 filter (on a full-spectrum camera). You get blue sky straight off the camera.

Did I say blue? I don’t see that anywhere in my post. But I do appreciate your opinion as to blue skies in ir images, although it does not appear to be shared by quite a few who post ir images on the site.

[Birna Rørslett]

One's visualisation of any image is what counts, not what a fraction of viewers might think.

Channel swapping on the typical 'brownish' R72 images will tend to result in blue sky and white vegetation.  Hence the linkage to "blue" as such.

By the way, member Bod Friedman recently has posted a set of nice IR images obtained with the BG-3 filter. I believe (Bob, correct me if I'm mistaken) the outcome was not achieved by channel swapping but by the selected filter in use.

[Seapy]

A sigh from the side line: channel swapping to get blue skies is such a trite cliché.

My mentioning channel swapping was not aimed at blue skies but the possibility if compensating for all the image data being in the red channel and the possibility to use channel swapping to share it around...  Blue skies were nowhere in my mind at that point.  As you say there are many ways of achieving that trick although I do like a little colour in my IR images but I can get that in other ways, after all IR has no colour but a picture can be whatever we want it to be, if it pleases us.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

"a picture can be whatever we want it to be, if it pleases us"

A sage advice.

[ArthurDent]

. . .after all IR has no colour but a picture can be whatever we want it to be, if it pleases us.

Precisely.

[ArthurDent]

This is my latest effort. It has, as they say of many aging movie stars, "had some work."
Nikon D500, Hoya R72 Filter, 18- 55mm f/3.5-5.6 G at 45mm, f/5.6, 0.5 sec., ISO 800.
Comments are appreciated.