Like Unsharp Mask, dodging and burning are old darkroom techniques used to enhance photos and emphasize particular areas. Dodging lightens your image and brings out hidden details in the range you specify (midtones, shadows, or highlights), and burning darkens your photos and brings out details in a given range. Both tools live with the Sponge tool in the Tools panel.
You may think that, given the Shadows/Highlights command, you don’t need these tools. But they still serve a useful purpose because they let you make selective changes, rather than affecting the whole image or requiring tedious selections the way Shadows/Highlights does. When you dodge or burn, you just paint your changes. Figure 12-13 shows an example of when you might need to work on a particular area. Of course, you can also make a selection and then use Shadows/Highlights on just that, which you may want to try in addition to dodging and burning.
Figure 12-13. Although the overall shadow/highlight balance of this photo is about right, the strong sideways lighting creates quite an imbalance over this little guy’s face. Careful dodging and burning can really help with these problems, as you can see in Figure 12-14.
Skillful use of dodging and burning can greatly improve your photos, although it helps to have an artistic eye to spot what to emphasize and what to play down. Use these tools along with the black-and-white conversion feature (Method One: Making Color Photos Black and White) to emphasize certain areas of your photos. Masters of black-and-white photography, like Ansel Adams, relied heavily on dodging and burning (in the darkroom, in those days) to create their greatest images.
Both the Dodge and Burn tools are really just variants of the Brush tool, except they don’t apply color—they just affect the colors and tones that are already present in your photo. Adobe refers to them as the “toning tools.”
One word of warning about these tools: Unless you use them on a duplicate layer, you can’t undo their effects once you close your photo, so be careful how you use them. Many people prefer to dodge and burn using the method described in the box on Blend Modes Instead of Dodge and Burn rather than with the actual Dodge and Burn tools, unless they’re working on black-and-white photos.
Tip
You may also want to try some of the Smart Brush’s lighting settings (Correcting color with a brush) for making selective adjustments to just part of your photo. A little experimenting will give you a sense for which tools you prefer to use in different situations. Also, if you’re aiming to copy a specific look from an already corrected photo, try the Style Merge feature (Merging Styles). It may not work, but it’s worth a shot.
You can use the Dodge tool to lighten areas of your image and to bring out details hidden in shadows. It’s a good idea to create a separate layer (Layer→Duplicate Layer or Ctrl+J/⌘-J) when using this tool to preserve your image if you go overboard. (Be sure you apply the Dodge tool to a layer that has something in it, or nothing will happen.) Here’s how to use it:
Activate the Dodge tool.
Click the Sponge tool in the Tools panel or press O, and then choose the Dodge tool (the lollipop-like paddle) from the pop-out menu. You’ll see some of the usual brush options in the Options bar, but with two differences: a Range setting that determines whether the tool works on highlights, midtones, or shadows; and an Exposure setting that determines the strength of the effect.
Adjust the tools settings and then drag over the area you want to change.
Choose a low Exposure setting and drag more than once to get a more realistic result (that’s true for the Burn tool, as well), as shown in Figure 12-14. After you’re done, if you think the tool’s effect is still too strong, you can always reduce the layer’s opacity (as long as you’re working on a duplicate layer).
Figure 12-14. Figure 12-13 after a dose of the Dodge and Burn tools. The shadowed side of his face is easier to see, but the contrast is pretty flat there, while it’s much too dramatic on the sunny side of his face. (The effects are deliberately too strong here to show you the perils of getting overzealous with either tool.) See page 415 to learn a different method for selectively adjusting highlights and shadows. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.
The Burn tool works just like the Dodge tool, but does exactly the opposite: It darkens. Use the Burn tool to uncover details in your images’ highlights. (Of course, there have to be some details there for the tool to work.) If your photo’s highlights are blown out, you won’t get any results, no matter how much you apply the tool. The Burn tool is grouped with the Sponge and Dodge tools in the Tools panel; its icon is a curled hand.
Most of the time, you’ll probably want to use the Dodge and Burn tools in combination. They can help draw attention to specific parts of your photo, but they work best for subtle changes. Applying them too vigorously—especially on color photos—creates an obviously faked look. Black-and-white photos (or color images converted to black and white) can generally stand much stronger contrasts.