Dodging and Burning in photoshop

In photoshop there are so many ways to do things. Just because someone does it different to you, doesn't mean that different is wrong. It's just different. As long as both ways end up with the same result. In this blog we're going to go through the dodging and burning technique that I use.

I have watched many videos, have done lots of research on dodging and burning (D&B), I have taken all of my favourite bits and made it into a photoshop action, when the image I'm working on needs some D&Bing I can just push play and the group just appears with all the adjustments inside.

 

There is quite a lot to this, but each part is very important.

1. Create a group and call it dodge and burn to keep everything organised, I like to edit non destructive, so if I don't like something I can go and change it, as a result I end up with quite a few layers, so naming them is important.

 

2. Make a curves adjustment layer, call it burn, drag the mid point all the way to the bottom and add a hide all (black) mask, then change the blend mode to luminosity. By changing the blend mode you then make it so that the layer is only affecting the tones of the image. If you don't use luminosity blend mode and do a fairly dramatic change it may affect some of the colours in the image.

3. Repeat step 2 but move the mid point to the top and call it dodge.

4 Finally I create a black and white adjustment layer. Because D&Bing is about exposure and changing the tone, by working with your image in grey scale, you can then see the tones much better.

 

As I said before I make it in to a action. Once I have pressed play and it's all popped up, I turn on the b&w layer. I assess the image, make sure I have the appropriate mask highlighted and go to my white paintbrush. I use it with the opacity at 100% and the flow at 1% and then simply paint on my adjustment. After I'm finished I turn off the b&w layer and I'm done

 

When you are using the brush keep in mind that less is more, the little changes make a big difference . I hope this helps in your editing, and maybe a bit of my technique makes it in to your workflow.

 

Thanks for reading Ade Attwood