I've recently purchased a copy of 'Skin' by Lee Varis which so far seems to be quite a good introduction to at least part of the world of retouching.

The dodging and burning technique proposed in the book is to use a Soft Light-blended layer filled with 50% gray and to then use the dodge and burn tools on this layer.

I was wondering if this technique had any specific advantages or disadvantages to other available approaches. Would anyone care to comment?

Cheers ..... Pete

I can't comment about other techniques (since they are infinite), but it has the advantage of being non-destructive, reversible, offering visual feedback, control over a range from undetectable to blatant, operates on a brush paradigm (which many people find intuitive), and many others too numerous to mention.

The only possible point of controversy in my mind is also easily addressable, in that many people prefer overlay to soft light.

When using a 50% gray on overlay to burn and a 50% gray on screen to dodge you cant merge the layers down or together because it take awa from the effect you must keep them separate wich bothers me but then again its a nice non destructive way to dodge and burn.

www.myspace.com/kissofglamour

I do agree that overlay is a better approach. It's easier to control. Maybe it's just me... But for more control i use Curves for burning in areas and and then another curves layer for dodging... If you make a mistake or do too much, you can adjust easily.

you might try my PWL actions (Paint With Light) I and II. One advantage of PWL I is that you can paint in color.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-restoration/9421-paint-light-action-i-ii.html

"I was wondering if this technique had any specific advantages or disadvantages to other available approaches. Would anyone care to comment?"

The biggest disadvantage with the soft light/overlay burn/dodge technique is that ALL tones under the brush are affected. Try taking a swipe at an area that contains highlights, shadows and midtones using a brush at about 25% to see the effect.

For this reason I prefer using either the Photoshop burn/dodge tools, which can be set to shadows, midtones or highlights...or making a curves adjustment to a selected area of an image, which gives even greater control.

Something I've noticed since playing with some images, is that the standard dodge and burn tools lighten to white and darken to black respectively which, on skin, probably isn't what you want. You're looking for lighter or darker levels of the skin colour and I would expect that to come from using curve layers.

Time for me to experiment some more I think.

Luckily I did a studio lighting course last year and I've got stacks of portraits to play with. My technique is getting better with all the practice too :)

Pete

Something I've noticed since playing with some images, is that the standard dodge and burn tools lighten to white and darken to black respectively which, on skin, probably isn't what you want. You're looking for lighter or darker levels of the skin colour and I would expect that to come from using curve layers.

You can avoid color shifts by burning/dodging on a copy set to luminosity mode. I've made an action that will quickly set this up using a copy of the image that has been stripped of color. That is to say, stripped of color while retaining the luminosity of the color image. You can find it here:

Burn 'n Dodge action (http://home.cfl.rr.com/pastrychef2/Burn%20'n%20Dodge%20action%20page.html)

While I still think using curves offers the most control over burning/dodging, here are some tips to using Photoshop's burn and dodge tools:

- Keep the opacity low. 3-5% is a good starting point.
- Try using the tools in an opposite manner. For example, to dodge shadows, set the Dodge tool to "Highlights". To dodge highlights, set the tool to "Shadows".
- Don't try to burn/dodge in one pass of the brush. Several passes of low opacity work best.
- Sometimes I find that dodging highlights followed by lightly burning shadows works well.
- As always, experimentation is key!

Hey Pam.. Your link gives an error..
Could you please send me a Copy of the Action?
Thank you
Snook

Snook,
Your profile settings won't allow me to send you e-mail. For you and anyone else having problems downloading the action, try this:

Burn-n-Dodge action (http://home.cfl.rr.com/pastrychef2/Burn-n-Dodge-PamR.atn)

You can use the standard dodge and burn tools on the softlight 50% grey layer.

You can merge the layers together, not sure why that is a problem.

Use Cntrl, Alt, Shift, N E to merge all layers to a new layer. It should merge your original layer with the dodge and burn layer and keep all effects.