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Step 5. OPEN ANOTHER IMAGE
This next method works well when there's a nice rich sky with lots of blue, and with lots of clouds (like the photo shown here). This time we're going to use a couple of masks to get the traditional infrared effect, where the sky turns almost black but the clouds just pop out at you in stark white, and the tree leaves turn really white. It sounds bad, but it's a beautiful thing when done right.
Step 6. USE THE CHANNEL MIXER USING THE SAME VALUES AS BEFORE, BUT THIS BLOWS OUT THE HIGHLIGHTS
Create a Channel Mixer adjustment layer again, turn on the Monochrome checkbox, and enter these values: leave the Red at +100, increase the Green to +200, then decrease the Blue to -200 to create that black sky and white trees and ground, but don't click OK yet. Now, although the sky, clouds, and trees look great, the ground is completely and totally blown out. So, we're going to have to do a little layer masking to create the perfect infrared photo. This is the ideal photo to do this on because you'll run across plenty of images where you'll need to do the sky separately from the ground to keep detail in both areas.
Step 7. LOWER THE CONSTANT UNTIL THE GROUND DETAIL REAPPEARS, EVEN THOUGH THE SKY IS NOW TOO DARK
We're now going to temporarily sacrifice the sky to get the ground back, so drag the Constant slider to the left until the detail in the ground reappears (as shown here, where I had to lower the Constant to -60% to get the ground back), then click OK.
Step 8. WITH BLACK AS YOUR FOREGROUND COLOR, PAINT OVER THE SKY TO CONCEAL JUST THE SKY
Press X to set black as your Foreground color, then get the Brush tool (B), choose a large soft-edged brush, and start painting over the sky (don't worryyou're painting on the mask, not the photo itself). Paint over the entire sky, and as you paint in black, those infrared areas become hidden (concealed) from view, leaving just the ground still having the infrared effect applied. Your mask's thumbnail (in the Layers palette) will look like the one shown herewith black over the sky, and white revealing the Channel Mixer edits you made in the previous step.
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