Easy Vivid False Color with TCUVIR

The TruColor TCUVIR Blue Filter makes full-spectrum photography easier, helping you capture vibrant, high-contrast images with minimal post-processing. When paired with a full-spectrum mirrorless camera, this specialized filter produces striking false-color results and balanced, vivid tones simply by setting a custom white balance

VIVID COLOR & EASY PROCESSING
​Most infrared (IR) photography involves complex workflows, including channel swapping and careful white balance adjustments. The TruColor TCUVIR simplifies the process. The color-corrected image below (a) highlights how easy it is to use – aside from basic cropping and noise reduction, the only adjustment was setting a custom white balance with an eyedropper tool in editing software (lightroom was used in this example).

UNDERSTANDING FALSE COLORS
Here's the image straight from the camera before any white balance correction (b). The colors appear pink and indigo because the camera sensor is capturing IR and ultraviolet (UV) light – wavelengths that aren’t visible to the human eye. The camera and editing software translate this non-visible data into the visible spectrum, resulting in what’s commonly referred to as “false color” imagery.

HOW WHITE BALANCE WORKS WITH IR / UV LIGHT
Assigning a custom white balance is key, and it can be done either in-camera before shooting or later during post-processing. The camera or editing software uses an algorithm to interpret the captured infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths, comparing them to surrounding visible colors and reassigning values that translate into false colors. This process is what allows the TruColor filter to produce its vivid, visually striking results.

SEEING FALSE COLORS IN BLACK & WHITE
These so-called false colors are still evident even when the image is converted to black and white, as shown in the final photograph (c). In this monochrome version, the foliage appears bright white because plants – while green to the human eye – reflect a large amount of IR light. By using the eyedropper tool to set the white balance directly on the foliage, those strong IR wavelengths are emphasized and translated into crisp white tones in the finished image.

a) Color Corrected

b) Straight From Camera

c) Black & White