Real vs. fake thermal images

Yesterday, someone showed me the "thermal" setting on digital camera software on their laptop computer.  Although this setting somewhat emulates the colors of many infrared images, these are not truly infrared images.  I think all this setting does is take visible light intensity, like one would see in a grayscale image, and convert it to the colors commonly seen in infrared images.  Here are three pictures of me: in conventional color camera mode, in "thermal" mode on a laptop camera, and in an infrared image on an FLIR camera.  Two things to note in the FLIR camera picture is that my glasses appear dark because they are cooler than the skin of my face and the writing on my shirt is not visible because it is the same temperature as the rest of my shirt. Thanks to the Peoria Riverfront Museum for the loan of the FLIR camera.