Dodge & Burn Remember Those?

Colin Utz
www.colinutzphotography.com

Beautiful Work indeed Colin & Edward !!!!!!

Thanks, dodging and burning is a great way to tweak the drama in an image.

Great images Carlos, Edward & Colin. Thanks for starting this thread!

I spent a good amount of time working with the dodge and burn tools and finally feel like I am starting to get a better feel for it. Here are a few of my recent favorites.




Matt Matekovic
www.photoarts.com

Is that feature available in Elements? I don't recall seeing it. Is it only available in the full version?

I love these....very nice work. I've been using the lasso tool to selectively lighten or darken sections, but I don't know if Elements has dodge and burn (?)

Mary, I have Elements 11. I have Dodge and Burn. It's in the Expert Section, on the left with the tools. It's under the clone stamp :)

Thanks, Carol! I updated to 13 about 6 months ago, I'll have to go look. There's so much stuff in there, I really need to take the time. I was making panoramas by hand until my son said "arn't you using the panorama feature in Photoshop?" LOL. Glad I stumbled on this thread. I'll have to try out the doge and burn tool....

Agreed!!! I love it!!! Beautiful examples, everyone!!

Mary, I'm glad you've got those tools! I just discovered them not that long ago. I promised myself I wasn't going to upgrade until I knew how to use at least three quarters of Elements 11. Though I'm dying to upgrade to the latest Elements so I can have even more tools, lol ....

... I don't know if you can do this in Elements, but in Photoshop, I like to dodge and burn by adding a new blank layer, paint bucket it with gray (black at 50%) ... set the blend mode to soft light and actually do your dodging and burning from there at about 12% for each brush for mid-tones. Then you can adjust that layer, or mask out bits you didn't like.

Burning and dodging is fantastic. I do a little of what you do, Lois.More often, I create channels specifically for dodging and burning, or dodge and burn the channels themselves before painting through them. Perhaps I'm not a purist but certainly admire the work of masters like yourselves.

Vanessa, your examples are magnificent!! You know, I have read up on channels more than once but never really put any of it into practice ... you've inspired me to do more with them!!

In Lightroom, Dodge and Burn is accomplished with brushes that have most of the exposure options available to the brush. I find it more subtle and easier to use than the D&B tools in Photoshop.

This would not have been possible without D&B. The original is a very high contrast photo.



Here's another where D&B helped really bring out the detail in the subject.

I'm finding it a huge topic, Lois. My quest is to find how each color is related to another. Short of running a lot of experiments that go along the lines of "if I add the inverse of this channel, this happens; if I subtract that channel, I isolate this color", I'm kind of lost. There has to be some guru out there that understands what exactly the channels represent but haven't found a good source, yet.

Chuck, what kind of settings do you have? Sounds interesting.

Just when I think I have a firm grasp of a particular technique, I see someone else's work and I weep...
The submitted examples are just too beautiful for words.
Thank you each and all for sharing same !!!
:)

---Carlos Diaz

One of my favorits from Bangkok:

Lois Bryan Lois Bryan19 Hours Ago :

... I don't know if you can do this in Elements, but in Photoshop, I like to dodge and burn by adding a new blank layer, paint bucket it with gray (black at 50%) ... set the blend mode to soft light and actually do your dodging and burning from there at about 12% for each brush for mid-tones. Then you can adjust that layer, or mask out bits you didn't like.


Exactly like Lois wrote.

Professional retouching is much better if you use Dodge and Burn steps over new blank layer .

With basic Dodge and Burn tools you can also achieve some decent results , but these tools very often produce and color cast on part of images where you paint these effects.
It is not problem to use basic Dodge and Burn tools when you work on colored and saturated images , you will not see problematic color cast around, because image is already saturated a lot, but when you work on other images with cold tones or less saturated images you will see a lot of color cast around on part of images where you paint effects.

Professional dodge and burn steps are as follows :

1. Open blank layer above your original image and convert that blank layer to soft light blending mode .
2. Choose brush toll and set flow to 100% and opacity for 5%- 7% , and then paint on file .

You can choose opacity with more then 8% ,you can choose and 15% for example but this will make more problems with mid-tones , you will destroy highlights.
So it is better to paint for example twice or 3 times on part of image with opacity of 5%-6% then once with opacity of 15%.

Also you can convert that blank layer and to overlay mode instead of soft light mode if you like to have more highlights on images , results are different and it is up to you which results you like and which effects you want to achieve.


There is also another Dodge and burn powerful steps - with curves.

Open one curve layer above image and make it with lighten tones and another curve layer with darken tones.
Then apply mask on both curve layers and paint with brush around.

Dodge and Burn steps as well curves are the most powerful tools and steps in professional high end retouching.
For example with dodge and burn steps you make completely high end skin retouching with painting pixels on skin, it is very time consuming process within 5-8 hours of retouching work per file , where you paint pixels on skin with 2%-3% opacity and with very very small brushes but that's the steps for professional skin retouching, known as MICRO Dodge and Burn high end retouching.

With landscapes, architectural files and all other file where you don't need professional high end skin retouching, it is not necessary to work with Micro Dodge and burn techniques , it is more then enough to work with MACRO dodge and burn steps which I described above.

Hope that helps,
Best Regards to All
Milan

MIlan;

I was blown away by your detailed explanation. I had never personally read such a detailed account. Thank you for taking the time to actually explain this process. I certainly hope that others read and follow your explanation. They will notice the difference in their work. Again, thank you !

You are welcome Carlos , here is also for you and community nice tutorial how to set layers for dodge and burn techniques and how to paint with brushes with combination of soft light and overlay blending mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omOoDWsl0so

This technique which I described above with this nice tutorial will make images more powerful , this is old retouching technique from darkroom but in new modern digital workflow.

With this technique you can completely relight your image , add lighting effects, make HDR image , whatever you like.

It just needs practice to "catch your eye" for painting.

Best Regards!

Lions and tigers and layers and masks, oh my. Nicely written up Milan, but too much work for me. Very simple to do the same thing in Lightroom.

Vanessa, I'm not sure what settings you're asking about, the camera, or what I did in LR? There are no specific settings in LR, you adjust brushes as needed, not unlike what Milan outlined with flow and opacity, as well as exposure adjustments. It's accomplished with various sets of sliders in the brush tool. Adobe has a very nice video tutorial.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-to/dodge-burn-adjustment-brush.html

Like Chuck, I use the local adjustment tools (brush, gradient and radial filter) in Lightroom.Thatīs it.

I'm very interested in composing fantasy images, this is exactly what I need to use because I know I will need to help the light sources. Does anyone know if the Lightroom doge and burn is as effective as the digital darkroom instructions by Milan?

Carlos, your images are fantastic, don't cry! Lol

Suzanne, for straight up D&B I can't think of anything better than LR. But if you are creating fantasy images, you are talking more about digital art than editing photos. I think you'd be better served using Photoshop with layers and masks than using Lightroom. You will most likely need to create some effects from scratch that can't be done in LR.

Colin, I've been there - every time I see a beautiful photo from Thailand, I wish I had a better camera when I was there. I have photos of Wat Arun, but they are ..... well so so. I only had one of those cheap APS cameras when I was there (remember those?).

Thank you for the explanation, Milan. I have a basic question. Those of you who use the Dodge and Burn specifically in Photoshop - do you find it works better on black and white images? I've used some functions in PE (not the dodge and burn) that do cause some color casts in various areas of the image as Milan described above.

Mary,

When you work with B&W images you can use dodge and burn basic tools normally from Photoshop or LR there is no difference, because there are no colors on B&W image , you can not affect colors .

But when you work with colored images especially if we speak about images where you have real models you must use Photoshop dodge and burn techniques over blank solid soft light layer.
Because on blank soft light layer with 50% grey opacity you just paint mid-tones to make darken and lighten area on image, you don't touch colors.

In professional retouching world and workflow this is one and only non-destructive technique of painting, this is standard for high end retouching.

All other methods like basic dodge and burn tools in PS or in LR don't work on 50% grey blank layer - you paint directly on image and those brushes are based on exposure and brightness settings and very often you will have problems with highlights and color cast.

Again, if you work on B&W images or some very colorful images with a lot of filters and colors you will not see a lot of color cast around , but with less saturated images color cast can be very visible sometimes.

The next very important thing why to use D&B steps over blank solid layer in PS is that you can change opacity on whole blank layer if is necessary later, and this is the most important thing when you work with composite images where you have tons of layers .

For better understanding of technique , simply open in PS one image with real model where you have skin and try to use basic dodge and burn tools and try non destructive method with 50% grey layer and you will see a huge difference between .
When you paint on skin with basic dodge and burn tools you will see a lot of color cast on skin , you will destroy skin colors , and then try with non destructive dodge an burn techniques and you will see the difference.

Regards,
Milan

Chuck, thanks for your response. The images will be photography based and hopefully only edited sparingly. I'm not planning on doing anything complicated yet I will need the layers program and may use some textures.

Milan, have you actually compared side by side the PS method vs trying it in Lightroom? I disagree that there is no difference between the basic D&B tools in PS and LR. The two are different animals and cannot be directly compared to one another. You have far more control in LR than just exposure and brightness.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/apply-local-adjustments.html

EDIT: After looking at your work, yes, you need Photoshop.

Thanks, Milan

I'm going to have to get out the manual (I printed it out) and read the doge and burn section and your description to see if I can figure it out. I've only used layers to do editing - that is in cutting and pasting over distracting elements, extending the sides of a photo, fixing damaged butterfly wings, etc. The only time I've used a new blank layer is to make photo collages. I've never used full layers over an image, so I'll have to figure it out.

So much to learn, so little time....my life expectancy at this point is only another 20 to 25 years or so, so I'd better get started LOL.

Chuck,

to be honest I didn't check the latest version of LR , thank you very much for link , as I can see there are some much better functions like before.
'I remember some older versions of LR without these new options .
As I can see from link LR has more options then basic D&B tools in PS .

I am going to give a try tomorrow to see results , I am very curios to see how it works .

Thank you very much,
Regards!