Dodging and Burning in Photoshop CS

[Jack Breakfast]

Greetings folks,
A quick question RE the dodge & burn tools in Photoshop CS. I wonder if you have any tips or tricks for doing the work and making it look natural. Simply put: I want to be able to lighten and darken certain areas of a photograph...I'd appreciate any help you could offer!
Thanks so much, really and truly,
Jack

[Roger Clark]

Greetings folks,
A quick question RE the dodge & burn tools in Photoshop CS. I wonder if you have any tips or tricks for doing the work and making it look natural. Simply put: I want to be able to lighten and darken certain areas of a photograph...I'd appreciate any help you could offer!
Thanks so much, really and truly,
Jack

Jack,
You'll note from the raw exercises threads that I do this with the curves tool. It appears that the dodge and burn tools are additive/subtractive and technically it should be multiplicative to the data. The curves tool is multiplicative. So I select an area, use refine edge, and then curves. If I remember right, CS does not have refine edge, so you must use feather. The refine edge tool, which also feathers, is one of the main reasons I felt an upgrade was worth it sometime back.

Roger

[Jay Gould]

Roger, that is a very interesting approach. Have you looked at these:http://goodlight.us/writing/tutorials.html

TK's actions are all based either on curves or channels and tonality. Not quite as location specific as your approach; however, using the Action Palette you cover the entire range from 0-255 in very small bites.

[Don Lacy]

Like Roger i use the a curve adjustment but instead of a selection I use a layer mask and paint in the effect with the brush tool set to 0 hardness For this months Raw exercise I used about 7 different curve adjustments on layer mask. Jay I have read tony's tutorials and have incorporated some of his techniques into my on work flow love the luminosity mask when working on landscape images.

[Jay Gould]

Like Roger i use the a curve adjustment but instead of a selection I use a layer mask and paint in the effect with the brush tool set to 0 hardness For this months Raw exercise I used about 7 different curve adjustments on layer mask. Jay I have read tony's tutorials and have incorporated some of his techniques into my on work flow love the luminosity mask when working on landscape images.

Don, how about a short tutorial with screen shots regarding how you use a brush with curves on a layer mask? Helpful for all of us!!

[Jack Breakfast]

I agree, that would be amazing, but an awful lot of work...would be highly appreciated by many of us, I'm sure.
Hadn't even considered curves, folks..."PP" is a whole new world to me, but I'm learning quickly, I think. I've been playing around with curves and the whole thing is an enormous mystery. I have a handle on levels, but curves is (are?) the next frontier...any resources you have, a basic curves tutorial, would be great! Thanking you again...

[KevinStohlgren]

I agree with the above regarding a curves tutorial, particularly when dealing with lightening/darkening certain areas. I understand it to a degree for adjusting contrast but beyond that, I am lost.

[John Chardine]

Hi Jack- I occasionally use the dodge and burn brushes and like them for small touch-ups. I use a 0-hardness brush and set the Exposure to a value which gives a subtle effect (say 12%, 25% etc. Play with this). The important pull-down menu is to the left and controls whether you are working on highlights, midtones or shadows. If you want to bring up a shadow area set the menu to shadow and the dodge tool will have little or no effect on midtones or highlights, therefore not necessitating any selection process. For example, if you want to lighten a midtoned head of a bird which is against a light BG, set to the menu to midtones and the BG will not be affected if your brush goes over into the BG area.

[Stuart Hill]

Much prefer Don's way John. Using a curve adjustment layer with masks means its non-destructive. Any time you can go back, tweak the curve or the layer mask until you get the look right. Using the dodge or burn tools means once you've changed the pixels that final.

You can also use, as mentioned, lumonisity masks as the layer masks for the curve adjustment layers. Thereby only affecting the tones you wish. All non-destructively.

Regards.
Stu.

[Tom Graham]

".... changed the pixels that final." You are working on a duplicate layer are you not??
Ansel Adams book "The Print" explains a lot about burning and dodging. A lot of it useful today even if you no longer have hypo trays.
Tom

[John Chardine]

Agree Stu, although the principle of "non-destructive processing" of course applies to the whole "post" process, not just dodging and burning. I have to say I don't leave a "paper trail" of processing steps once I'm in Photoshop because I just find it too cumbersome. If I have to reprocess an image I go back to the RAW file and use the settings saved in ACR.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The dodge and burn tools are two of my favorite tools...but...GASP!!...I don't use layers or masks!! Just directly on the image I'm working and can never tell the "destruction" effects. Like John, if I need to reprocess an image I just go back to my raw file - no biggie as I never spend more than 5 - 10 minutes at most on an image. 0% hardeness and my exposure "sweet spot" is 8%. I choose either midotnes, highlights, or shadows depending on the need.

[Jack Breakfast]

Thanks everyone, really and truly. Daniel: I like, nay, LOVE your attitude. Huzzah, etc.

[John Chardine]

Good tip on the exposure sweet spot Daniel. I'll try that.

My personal experience is that as I progress as a nature photographer, I have to do less and less post-processing, as suggested by Daniel. I still spend time on an image if I think it's worth it but there's nothing sweeter than bringing an image into Photoshop, doing minimal cropping, maybe a Curves or Levels, sharpen, and it's done and dusted, as they say, in 2-3 minutes work.

[Jack Breakfast]

Yes, John, agreed. That's my feeling also. I never want to spend too long in post-processing either, but some of these very basic things were eluding me. Daniel's tip is an excellent one. I've been playing around with curves and their mysteries are revealing themselves to me, a little bit at a time, and if I really focus I may be able to understand some of their finer points one day...

[Daniel Cadieux]

BTW, with 8% exposure I can go less by painting less in that area. I just keep my finger pressed on the left mouse button and draw little circles in the area I need to touch up. You can see the amount of dodging or burning appear as you go in gradient increments, so I don't always "paint" until the max of 8% is attained. I may also do a second pass if I need to go a bit more.

BTW...I don't remember the last time I used a layer on anything in photoshop...but I do remember feeling liberated when I did stop! No more HUGE files that I never went back to anyhow, and much less cluttered workflow for me (I don't have too much patience with PP). I know layers are popular and useful to most and that is perfectly fine...I just haven't seen a difference in the my final images so why would I continue using them?

[Jay Gould]

Good tip on the exposure sweet spot Daniel. I'll try that.

My personal experience is that as I progress as a nature photographer, I have to do less and less post-processing, as suggested by Daniel. I still spend time on an image if I think it's worth it but there's nothing sweeter than bringing an image into Photoshop, doing minimal cropping, maybe a Curves or Levels, sharpen, and it's done and dusted, as they say, in 2-3 minutes work.

John, are you doing a complicated landscape in 2-3 minutes too?

[Stuart Hill]

Ajustment layers don't actually increase the file size as such whilst working in ps like duplicate layers do. Agreed that if a few mins is all thats needed then for those not used to ps its over kill.
For me using ps all day at work it's second nature and just as quick, i guess its just the way you get used to working.

Tom, the reason not to work on a duplicate layer for contrast/brightness etc is the edits are still final. If it took say twenty steps to get to where you are and then have to start again because you've gone to far it could be a lot of work. If you'd used adjustment layers you could edit them without having to start from scratch. File sizes are also kept down.

kind regards.
Stu.

[Jay Gould]

Ajustment layers don't actually increase the file size as such whilst working in ps like duplicate layers do. Agreed that if a few mins is all thats needed then for those not used to ps its over kill.
For me using ps all day at work it's second nature and just as quick, i guess its just the way you get used to working.

Tom, the reason not to work on a duplicate layer for contrast/brightness etc is the edits are still final. If it took say twenty steps to get to where you are and then have to start again because you've gone to far it could be a lot of work. If you'd used adjustment layers you could edit them without having to start from scratch. File sizes are also kept down.

kind regards.
Stu.

Interesting, what work do you do? You might be the BPN PS Guru!

[John Chardine]

John, are you doing a complicated landscape in 2-3 minutes too?

Hi Jay- I guess if I'm doing an HDR then it's going to take longer I suppose. I'm interested to know why you think landscapes are any different than bird images, at least in the context of what we are discussing.

[Roger Clark]

A couple of points. Editing steps without adjustment layers are not final until you save or go beyond your history limit. I rarely duplicate layers for general editing and do not use adjustment layers. I edit on the base image. If I want to back up, I go back in the history, deleting if necessary. Some of the images I work on are many gigabytes and I don't need/want any increase in file size. I will save intermediate files when I feel the need, and can delete them when done. So my final file is a single layer 16-bit tiff.

Regarding dodging and burning with curves, between selection and where one modifies the line in the curves tool, one has maximum flexibility. The selection isolates the area, and the curves isolates the level. For example, to modify highlights only, put a couple of tie points on the line to pin the lower end, and then just modify the upper end of the line. Want to reduce between mid-level and highlights? Just pin the highlights and low end and modify the mid-to-upper part of the curve, and so on.

Jay, the link to Tony Kuyper's articles were interesting, but seems too complex. I think I could do many of the things he shows in less steps, and less complication.

Roger

[Jay Gould]

Hi Jay- I guess if I'm doing an HDR then it's going to take longer I suppose. I'm interested to know why you think landscapes are any different than bird images, at least in the context of what we are discussing.

Hi John, as an aside, from "other" communications, while playing and monitoring BPN I am on the OWC website ordering upgrades for my soon to be ordered 17" MBP to be delivered 8 May! Finally bit the bullet!!!

Landscapes: While this thread was titled D&B, and the OP referred to D&B areas of a photograph, the OP wasn't limited to birds. You had said 2-3 minutes applying a bit of curves/levels/sharpening etc. When I am doing a landscape image I probably spend 1-2 hours on the image; at the end of that time I "own" the image as I have made the scene mine - "Nature Interpreted".

The initial cleanup layer, depending upon the image, could easily take up to 30 minutes or more to remove all of the stuff I do not want in the image, e.g., cleaning a beach of extraneous driftwood, removing hand of man items like posts and wires, and generally preparing my "clean view" of the scene. When I shoot the scene in the first instance I am visualizing how it will look after cleanup. If I cannot visualize the clean scene the way I want it to be I probably will pass on the shot.

After cleanup I experiment with different noise reduction software, e.g., Nik Define and Topaz Denoise. I have not found that one automatically in all instances is better than the other. I tend to favor Nik as I do a lot of Nik applications using a brush; I might only apply NR to certain areas.

Now, onto capture sharpening to reverse the softness introduced by the NR. Here again I play with Nik and Pixel Genius software, and again I will depending upon the scene use a brush.

This now becomes my new "beginning" image and I will depending upon the image flatten at this point to reduce file size. Not often as storage is cheap.

As I was typing this Gmail popped up with Roger's post:

Jay, the link to Tony Kuyper's articles were interesting, but seems too complex. I think I could do many of the things he shows in less steps, and less complication.

Roger, when you use the palette and run the action expanding the various tones - I only work in curves/you can also work in levels - it is very quick to play with the various tonalities slices to see how it impacts the various areas of your image; and of course you can apply a clipping mask to further limit the area affected. It is also very quick to delete those layers that you do not tweak. Mate, for $30 I suggest you give it a Yeoman's Try; I do not believe you will feel you wasted your money!

John, on this "beginning" image I will now play with the various Nik and Topaz filters, CS6 BETA options etc. And, I will also use the TK actions which I am learning too.

Because I am a learner, I am much slower than others; faster than I use to be!!

That is why I was surprised at the 2-3 minutes.

[Stuart Hill]

Jay, I'm with you on the landscape pp. Especially if you're going b&w there is much more scope for a photographers interpretation of the scene captured and much more complex post processing.

Roger, the idea of using adjustment curves is you can go back to any step at any time and alter the settings without having to remember the previous 20 steps. Can you delete part of the history and keep all other steps?

I'm a printer by trade, so no ps guru here, sorry Jay!

regards.
Stu.

[John Chardine]

Hi Jay thanks for the details on your post-processing. I guess we have completely different approaches to photography, but that's all good. I am in favour of diversity!

[Jay Gould]

Hi Jay thanks for the details on your post-processing. I guess we have completely different approaches to photography, but that's all good. I am in favour of diversity!

Mate, if all of your PP for your magnificent "Fire in the Lemaire" - 500px.com/photo/4462578 - only required 2-3 minutes, my hat is off to you!! That is an amazing image.

[Mike Tracy]

Nik's Viveza here. Way more precise, less complicated ,more options and better results for me than dodging and burning in PS.

[Stuart Hill]

For sure there are many ways and short cuts to achieve the same end. Think the key is to find one that works for you and stick with it. As it becomes part of your workflow, speed follows.

[Charles Glatzer]

One reason for using Adjustment layers is you can copy/drag the Adjustment layers to any other similar image in a given sequence saving tremendous time. Of course if you are using a mask you may have to delete
or modify the mask depending on the elements contained therein. It is prudent to change the layer blend mode to luminosity when using curves/levels ensuring you modify only the tonal values and not color.

There are many ways to alter tonal values within an image..each method has advantages and disadvantages.

If an image needs selective burning and/or dodging I find.... making a new layer, set blending mode to soft light, layer opacity to 65% (allows you to globally increase or decrease the effect}, with brush opacity
to 10% offers outstanding flexibility. White brush dodges (lightens), black burns (darkens). BTW- you can copy/drag this layer to a new image as well.

Best,

Chas

[Jack Breakfast]

Again, allow me to thank all of you folks for contributing your very good ideas. I really appreciate your time...there's a lot to learn here, and it delights me to read through all of this!

[Charles Glatzer]

Jack,
If I remember right, CS does not have refine edge, so you must use feather. The refine edge tool, which also feathers, is one of the main reasons I felt an upgrade was worth it sometime back.
Roger

Feather is the same as applying Filter > Gaussian blur on a selection or mask edge, and is available for use with all Photoshop versions new and old.

Chas

[Don Lacy]

Wow been away for a day or two and this thread really took off. I use adjustment layers for their flexibility and ultimate control I often fine tune them with the opacity slider and will take advantage of the blend modes. An average image takes about 20 to 30 minutes and has around 5-10 layers and mask my goal is to even out tonalities and guide the viewers eye thru the image. I work with digital like its print film not slides and consider the Raw file only half of the process I also enjoy bringing a file to life in PS and figure if the old master would spend days fine tuning a print an 1/2 hour in PS really is not that much. Have to agree with Jay on landscape images a whole different level of processing and if you look at the very best work being done today those guys know PS and how to use it. Please do not take this next statement wrong and it is not meant to offend or apply to anyone posting on this thread but I see a lot of images here and on other forums that never reach their full potential do to poor processing.

[Jack Breakfast]

Don, I don't mean to get into an argument, and your point is well-taken. I would submit, however, that many images look over-processed to my eye. As always, there's no accounting for taste in the world of art...

[Don Lacy]

I consider over processed to be bad processing take a look at what I did here for Rogers Raw exercise this took about 20 minutes and if you read what I did you will get a sense of what I feel it takes to bring an image to its full potential I could have season it with more saturation or less contrast but that is a matter of taste. The main concepts of evening out the tonalities pulling out detail and leading the viewers eye to the main focus of the image still applies. http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...2-Ravi-s-image
One can surely use PS to create over the top images but using it subtly to enhance an image take just same amount of skill and attention.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Jack,

Greetings. Late to the party, but just wanted to say that curves is the single most powerful tool in PS and many of the effects of other tools involving dodging, burning, saturation, contrast, color balance, can be replicated in curves... I'd go as far as saying most of the other tools are curves adjustments under the covers with a restricted interface.

It's a handy tool to understand how to use. Along with layers (masking & blending) & you have most of PS.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Roger Clark]

Feather is the same as applying Filter > Gaussian blur on a selection or mask edge, and is available for use with all Photoshop versions new and old.

Chas

Hi Chas
I agree with what you say above, but that is not what I said. I said I didn't remember "refine edge" tool being in CS. That is a different tool than feather.

Roger

[Roger Clark]

I consider over processed to be bad processing take a look at what I did here for Rogers Raw exercise this took about 20 minutes and if you read what I did you will get a sense of what I feel it takes to bring an image to its full potential I could have season it with more saturation or less contrast but that is a matter of taste. The main concepts of evening out the tonalities pulling out detail and leading the viewers eye to the main focus of the image still applies. http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...2-Ravi-s-image
One can surely use PS to create over the top images but using it subtly to enhance an image take just same amount of skill and attention.

Hi Don,

I would love to see what you and others could do with the second raw exercise for March. It seems that doing two, one got forgotten. With all the expertise discussed in this thread, everyone please show us what you can do with Jack's image in the March raw processing exercise:
http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...2-Jack-s-image

Roger

[Roger Clark]

Jack,

Greetings. Late to the party, but just wanted to say that curves is the single most powerful tool in PS and many of the effects of other tools involving dodging, burning, saturation, contrast, color balance, can be replicated in curves... I'd go as far as saying most of the other tools are curves adjustments under the covers with a restricted interface.

It's a handy tool to understand how to use. Along with layers (masking & blending) & you have most of PS.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Michael,
I agree. Well said. I'll have to give adjustment layers another try, but I'll use them with curves.

Roger

[Don Lacy]

Michael,
I agree. Well said. I'll have to give adjustment layers another try, but I'll use them with curves.

Roger

They are great for local adjustments and the ability to fine tune it even more with the opacity slider is why I love them and if your worried about the file size you can always flatten the image before saving it.

[Jack Breakfast]

And many thanks to Roger for drawing attention to the photo of mine that he generously picked out for a raw-conversion assignment. Preceding sentence is hardly even a sentence, my apologies. My thanks to all; what we have here is a good thread!

[BobbyPerkins]

I'll second what Mike Tracy stated on Nik's Viveza (for me anyways). Using the Upoints for targeted tonal changes. Maxis Gamez & Charles Glatzer have great webinars on Nik's free On-Demand training showing exaples in Viveza, along with lots of other great learning webinars.
Thank you Charles & Max!

[Doug Brown]

Here's an easy way to dodge and burn. Create a new layer above the layer you want to lighten or darken. Change the blend mode to Soft Light. Select the brush tool and pick an opacity in the 10-20% range. Painting with a white brush will dodge and painting with a black brush will burn. The effect is much more natural IMO than with Photoshop's dodge and burn tools. This technique allows you to erase or mask your dodging and burning. You can also vary both brush and layer opacity, as well as the number of brush strokes you apply to a given area, so there's an enormous amount of flexibility.

[Jack Breakfast]

Doug: hot tips! Thank you.

[John Chardine]

Yes that is a good one Doug. IMO one of the challenges of blending modes in Ps is that short of testing the effect, I find it very hard to predict the effect of many of them. Who would have thought that painting with black or white on a layer with Soft light blending mode would have this effect? Each blending mode is based on an algorithm and I guess I just have to learn what each actually does.

[Roger Clark]

Yes that is a good one Doug. IMO one of the challenges of blending modes in Ps is that short of testing the effect, I find it very hard to predict the effect of many of them. Who would have thought that painting with black or white on a layer with Soft light blending mode would have this effect? Each blending mode is based on an algorithm and I guess I just have to learn what each actually does.

Hi John,
I agree. So many ways to do the same thing. But it is hard to know what some of these things actually do without knowing the underlying algorithm, which isn't published.

Roger

[Charles Glatzer]

Here's an easy way to dodge and burn. Create a new layer above the layer you want to lighten or darken. Change the blend mode to Soft Light. Select the brush tool and pick an opacity in the 10-20% range. Painting with a white brush will dodge and painting with a black brush will burn. The effect is much more natural IMO than with Photoshop's dodge and burn tools. This technique allows you to erase or mask your dodging and burning. You can also vary both brush and layer opacity, as well as the number of brush strokes you apply to a given area, so there's an enormous amount of flexibility.

Doug, I agree and suggested the same method earlier in this post.

Best, Chas

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Hi John,
I agree. So many ways to do the same thing. But it is hard to know what some of these things actually do without knowing the underlying algorithm, which isn't published.

Roger

Roger,

Greetings. The wiki has some explanations (as does the reference pages)... haven't checked them myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_modes

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Jack Breakfast]

Wonderful stuff here, folks. I'm glad I started this thread. I've learned a great deal from you all...