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Originally Posted by singlo thank you so much for the tips. Klaatu, I have just tried your technique, it work well too--the only thing slows me down is that i have to keep reminding myself to switch constantly between hightlights, midtones and shadows option on the Dodge & Burn tool menu during the process. It is easy to forget when I work on a portrait with rich variations of tonal range. |
You're welcome!
Yeah, it does take a little experience with it to get used to, but the easy part is that in the interim you can either backup a step (or two) in history (press
cmd/cntrl+shift+z) or just go over the mistake with the opposite tool. The really great part about using this method is that it isn't obliterating the gray pixels, it's just shifting their luminosity lighter or darker. So, you can easily use the
Burn to darken the (accidental) highlights and the
Dodge to lighten the (accidental) shadows. No harm, no foul.
Another thing that helps is that setting the foreground color to gray and then just pressing "b" for the
Brush Tool will erase anything that you've done (be sure to switch back by pressing "o").
An alternative method (that is similar to
heyrad's) would be to make two layers; one for
Dodge and the other for
Burn. The purests will love this since it keeps the two effects (highlights & shadows) separate and allows opacity (or mode blending) to be separate as well. This way you can also focus on
one tool at a time without having to switch. However, this maybe overkill with most images that just need a little touch-up.
We've made the creation of the
Dodge/Burn Layer(s) an
Action which cuts down even more time. The
Action also selects a preset of the
Dodge/Burn Tool so, just one click and we're ready to roll. We're very used to the convenience of just using the
opt/alt keypress to switch back and forth as it gives a greater sense of painting on the image (especially with a tablet).
Oh, that reminds us, you can also set the down-button on a pen to be the
opt/alt key, this way you don't even have use the keyboard. Although, we've set ours to be the
Zoom Tool (up and down) which is nice to get into those small details. But this would all be in the realm of personal preferences.