My last two posts featured ‘traditional’ photography. That’s not necessarily true for this one.

If you’re not someone who frequents my blog, you might not know that I recently started experimenting with infrared photography. So needless to say, I had to bust out my Hoya filter on the last leg of Monday’s shoot. I should have taken it out sooner for the golden hour. Ideally it wouldn’t have been so overcast later that morning, but I think I still ended up with some nice shots.

In addition to being my third post of the cherry blossom series, this is also my third post on infrared photography. If you’ve seen my second one, you’ll notice that the images below look very different. I’m pleased with these results. I guess they say the third time’s the charm… I look forward to the fourth.

My post processing is much improved. I added a crucial layer to my workflow. Although I still refuse to shell out hundreds of dollars for Photoshop CS6, I bit the bullet and paid $30 for a month’s use (my trial expired long ago).

Being able to switch color channels and make other adjustments greatly expands my options. The same is true for HDR photography, the focus of my last post in the series. As much as I love Lightroom, it’s no substitute for the arsenal of tools that Photoshop brings. There are other products but all seem to pale in comparison.

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In case you haven’t seen them yet, here are the first two posts from my cherry blossom series.

Part 1 – Fuji X-Pro1 – normal shots

Part 2 – Canon 5D Mark III – normal shots