Posts Tagged ‘Dodge and Burn’

Non-destructive Dodge and Burn in Photoshop

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

While we’ve been talking about the Dodge and Burn Tools in Photoshop, what hasn’t been said is both of these tools use what is called a destructive technique. That means you should have made a copy of your original image before working on it because the Dodge and Burn Tools will change the pixel information permanently. The only way to undo any changes is to back up using the history while making your edits. (In Photoshop, Ctrl + Alt + Z will back up through history one step at a time).

If you’re making just a few changes, this may work for you however, there are those who prefer to always use a non-destructive edit technique using layers.

There are a few different methods available for non-destructive dodge and burn, but by far the easiest in my mind is painting with soft light.

To use this method, create a blank layer and set the blend mode to soft light and then set the fill to 50% gray. If you’re using Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, this can be done in one step by going to the menu bar and selecting Layer => New => Layer… and on the dialog box that opens, change the Mode drop down box to Soft Light and then tick the check-box to Fill with Soft-Light-neutral color (50% gray).

Now you’re ready to make your dodge and burn corrections. Set your brush color to black and set the opacity of the brush to 20-25% . This will act like the burn tool when using it, darkening the areas in the image where you apply brush strokes.

To dodge, set your brush color to white, leave the opacity of the brush the same (20-25%) and apply strokes to the areas of the image where you want to bring up the highlights.

The beauty of using this method is you can get a quick comparison of your correction work by turning the visibility of the gray layer off and on.

Now, go dodge and burn those photos you know need some work.

photoshop tutorials

Soft light adjustment layer turned off

photoshop tutorials

Soft light adjustment layer turned on

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When Should Dodge and Burn Be Used On Your Photos?

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Dodging and burning in the darkroom required a lot of patience and skill. Fortunately Photoshop makes the process infinitely easier and accessible to anyone with a computer.

The Dodge Tool lightens underlying pixels giving a underexposed look and the Burn Tool darkens the pixels giving a richer, overexposed appearance. Both tools are used by setting a brush size and applying in strokes. In addition, you set these tools to affect highlights, shadows, or midtones so you don’t have to be so careful when applying changes. It’s also a good idea to set the Exposure in the Options Bar to a low number so your changes are more gradual with each stroke.

There are many situations where the Dodge and Burn Tools can be used to improve your photos by adjusting the tonal quality of selected areas. For instance, photos taken with a flash can often be overexposed in the foreground or underexposed in the background. People standing closer to the camera flash can be darkened by using the Burn Tool if they appear too light. Those standing further away from the flash can be lightened by using the Dodge Tool if they appear underexposed.

Another instance where dodging and burning comes in handy is in correcting an image to improve the focal point of the image. As an example, take a look at the following picture of a barn at the base of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming.

Dodge and burn using Photoshop

Before and after using Dodge and Burn Tools in Photoshop. Click to enlarge.

Notice the detail is practically lost in the dark shadow of the barn face. With just a little dodging, that area becomes a bit lighter and the details emerge once again.

Off to the extreme left of the barn you see what looks to be the metal roof of another barn glinting in the sun. Here the burn tool is used to tone down the brightness so as not to distract the eye so much when looking at the entire composition.

By adjusting the light and dark areas of your images using dodge and burn, a good picture can be made into a perfect print which reproduces all the tones in the original scene without any one area competing for undue interest.

Next: Non-destructive Dodge and Burn

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What is Dodge and Burn?

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Dodge and Burn. Even though it sounds more like something that might happen in the field of sports or perhaps slang used by state highway troopers, these terms actually refer to photo image manipulation.

Back in the day when the only way to see your photograph was to have it developed in a darkroom, photographers would manipulate the amount of light shining through the negatives being printed to vary the exposure of selected areas on the photographic paper.

This process took place in the printing darkroom where a light source from an enlarging lens shines through the film negative and onto a sheet of photosensitized paper. Photographers used any material with some amount of opacity to hold between the enlarger lens and the photographic paper. By dodging underexposed areas, light was prevented from hitting the paper thus saving some of the details that otherwise would have been too dark to see.

Burning is the opposite of dodging, where areas of the print were deliberately exposed to more light thus making those areas darker on the final print.

White House Ruin by Ansel Adams

White House Ruin by Ansel Adams

Yes, I know this can sound confusing with all the negative, positive, light and dark talk. I find it easier to remember by thinking of burning as making things darker. Getting a sunburn makes your skin darker. And if you dodge under the beach umbrella and stay out of the sun, you will stay lighter. Okay, I’ll admit that experienced photographers might think that analogy kind of dumb, but you see what I mean.

In creating many of his famous prints, master photographer Ansel Adams used dodging and burning to manipulate his images in the darkroom and even wrote a book on the subject, The Print.

Lucky for us, we don’t have to use a darkroom to achieve the right dodge and burn effects on our digital photos.

Coming next: How to Dodge and Burn in Photoshop.

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