Are there any programs that can convert color infra-red photos to actual color?

I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.
Anyone know of anything like this?

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:48:55 -0400, Scotius wrote:

I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.
Anyone know of anything like this?

Unless you know the precise IR spectral response of every material in
nature or man-made, and were certain those exact same materials appeared in
your scene, it would be impossible to convert the IR frequencies to known
colors in the visible spectrum. Take for a simple example two green paints.
One highly reflective of IR, the other highly absorbing of IR. If you shot
an IR image of a green-painted object through the obscuring haze from a
fire what color would you try to redefine it as?

IR works great for shooting through the haze of immense forest-fires. I
have quite a few majestic scenes and large panoramas of forest-fires in
front of towering mountains and glacier-capped peaks, abnormally hidden
from view by the dense forest-fire smoke but clearly revealed in IR. Unless
I had similar images taken from the same locations at the same time of day
during the same season of the year without the smoke present, I would be in
error trying to convert the IR-luminosity spectral response of those hidden
portions of those images to their full-color counterparts.

On 2010-07-15 17:48:55 -0700, Scotius said:

I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.
Anyone know of anything like this?

Since you seem to be depend on others to conduct research for you, I
would suggest you read some of the material provided by these sites:
http://www.infraredphoto.eu/Site/Welcome.html
http://lifepixel.com/
http://www.maxmax.com/

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:48:55 -0400, Scotius wrote:

I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.
Anyone know of anything like this?


I can't see how it might work. The color information you are
looking for is not in the data you have.

I would guess it may be possible to make the results look a
little less odd, but I doubt that it would help any.

It would be something like trying to make a Big Mac taste like
cheese cake with cherry topping with out having cheese or cherries or
even knowing that what you have to start with is a Big Mac.

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:48:55 -0400, Scotius wrote:

I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.
Anyone know of anything like this?


I can't see how it might work. The color information you are
looking for is not in the data you have.

I would guess it may be possible to make the results look a
little less odd, but I doubt that it would help any.

It would be something like trying to make a Big Mac taste like
cheese cake with cherry topping with out having cheese or cherries or
even knowing that what you have to start with is a Big Mac.

chuckle

I think you've put his problem about as well as anyone can put it.

In article , Scotius
writes
I know that color infra-red images look really weird (for lack
of a better term), but I once read that infra-red light cuts through
fog/haze etc better than regular light, which I suppose is why B & W
infra-red shots always look better than B & W shots without IR flash.
So I'm wondering if there's a program that could accurately
predict based on IR color what the colors present should be, and
convert them, so it would be possible to do color shots better in
haze, etc.

Could you tell what colour a particular car in a B&W photo is? That's
essentially the same question. In a B&W image you have lost the colour
information. In an infra-red image you have also lost colour
information. Nothing will recover what you didn't record. You can
guess, and paint it any colour you like, just as they used to do with
B&W photos.

Anyone know of anything like this?

Only similar questions. I was once asked by a senior member of the UK
Royal Family why the false colour pictures from a thermal camera,
representing temperature from blue being cold to red being hot, made
someone's shirt look orange when it was obviously blue. Just as I
repeated that it was false colour, a colleague jumped in and told him
not to worry because I would have that fixed in a day or two. No such
thing as a stupid question, just stupid people.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

"DanP" wrote in message
...
[]
The information from an IR image has nothing to do with the colour.
A hot green mug will look different in IR than a plant with the same
shade of green.
So you cannot map IR to visible colour.

DanP

Be careful not to confuse near-IR with far-IR. With digital cameras and
film it's the region just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum which
people call "IR" - a wavelength of ~0.8um. Here, the prime difference is
that the reflectance of vegetation is much higher and hence the
characteristic appearance of monochrome IR images.

Put briefly: to see thermal radiation from a hot mug requires an imager
sensitive in the 10um region of the spectrum, which might require a cooled
detector. To see fires of a few hundred degrees C, imagers sensitive to
the 3-5um region of the spectrum work the best.

Cheers,
David

In article , Grimly
Curmudgeon writes
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Kennedy McEwen
saying something like:

I was once asked by a senior member of the UK
Royal Family why the false colour pictures from a thermal camera,
representing temperature from blue being cold to red being hot, made
someone's shirt look orange when it was obviously blue. Just as I
repeated that it was false colour, a colleague jumped in and told him
not to worry because I would have that fixed in a day or two. No such
thing as a stupid question, just stupid people.

Your colleague saw the Royal's eyes glaze over two sentences into the
explanation and leapt in to save you. The Royals are notoriously
difficult to penetrate with any meaningful knowledge, their inbreeding
prevents it.

This particular Royal was very savvy about the technology and commented
that he had used something similar during his combat experience, to
which another colleague remarked "I know". When asked by the Royal in
question how he knew this, my colleague replied "Your mom told me!". ;-)
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

In article , David J Taylor
writes

Put briefly: to see thermal radiation from a hot mug requires an imager
sensitive in the 10um region of the spectrum,
No it doesn't, 3-5um works just as well - better in fact.

which might require a cooled detector.
Not at 10um it doesn't.

The radiation from the mug may peak around 10um, but with modern cooled
sensors its the radiation contrast that determines the optimum band. The
contrast at mug-like temperatures in the 3-5um region is about 4%/degC
and roughly double what it is at 10um.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

"Kennedy McEwen" wrote in message
...
In article , David J Taylor
writes

Put briefly: to see thermal radiation from a hot mug requires an imager
sensitive in the 10um region of the spectrum,
No it doesn't, 3-5um works just as well - better in fact.

which might require a cooled detector.
Not at 10um it doesn't.

The radiation from the mug may peak around 10um, but with modern cooled
sensors its the radiation contrast that determines the optimum band. The
contrast at mug-like temperatures in the 3-5um region is about 4%/degC
and roughly double what it is at 10um.
--
Kennedy

I was trying to keep it simple! Note that I said "might require a cooled
detector", not "will". Accepted that the contrast is greater, but you
then quote the use of a cooled detector.

All space-based instruments which I know about use cooled detectors, for
looking at earth-like (i.e. mug-like) temperatures, and the NET is
typically lower in a 10um detector than in a 3-5um one.

The point remains to distinguish between far-IR and near-IR uses of the
term "infra-red" (and those tend not to be hard and fast terms either).

Cheers,
David