Burning Results in Over Saturation

[longside1]

Hi guys,

I'm using two curves adjustment layers set to luminosity for undertaking dodging and burning.

One annoying thing I notice is that when I want to heavilly burn a photo, eg to create shadow to the side of the face, the skin goes a really dark reddish brown colour instead of the desired blacker tone like with a normal shadow.

I have tried desaturating and also reducing the red in these dark brown areas to try and get a blacker shadow but I'm never satisfied with the results.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot!

[crazyfly1]

Upgrade to CS4 where they have solved the dodge and burn issues.

[longside1]

Originally Posted by crazyfly1

Upgrade to CS4 where they have solved the dodge and burn issues.

Crazyfly, unfortunately my budget won't stretch to CS4!

There must be a workaround in CS3?

[Markzebra]

Don't set them to luminosity, terrible idea - use a conventional Curve. You can either play with the color curve values to get the precise value you want, or you can clip (group/clip not sure what terminology they are using now) a hue/sat layer to your burn curve.

The dodge and burn tools can also be used on flat. Not sure I like that they have changed the default dodge tool to the new behaviour, thats going to screw with many people who still prefer to do their d&b on flat layers. CS4 is really not going to alter high end workflows particularly

[crazyfly1]

Markzebra, I don't have CS4 yet but judging from Adobe's past and how they are pack rats hanging on to outdated tools (sharpen more, brightness contrast) I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a legacy option for the dodge and burn tools.

[Markzebra]

There is a legacy option

[longside1]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Don't set them to luminosity, terrible idea - use a conventional Curve. You can either play with the color curve values to get the precise value you want, or you can clip (group/clip not sure what terminology they are using now) a hue/sat layer to your burn curve.

The dodge and burn tools can also be used on flat. Not sure I like that they have changed the default dodge tool to the new behaviour, thats going to screw with many people who still prefer to do their d&b on flat layers. CS4 is really not going to alter high end workflows particularly

Thanks Markzebra for the response! The reason for using a luminosity blend mode was because i though it teh resulting dodging/burning would then only affect the tonality of the image and not the colour. I may be wrong on this though!

I have tried selective desat, in particular on the red channel to get rid of the brown tinge but with no luck, I will have a play with selective colour curves though.

If anyone is interested, I also tried selecting the brownish areas using find colour option under selection, and then filling with black...didn't work though!

[Markzebra]

Luminosity blend mode is quite dangerous in RGB - what it does is add, or subtract EQUAL amounts of the three channels. This change is not modifiable. Luminosity is more useful in my experience, in CMYK because the balance it uses seems to be less damaging.

Not sure what your term "selective desat" means.

If you use a curve you can very successfully group either a hue/sat or a selective colour layer to your curve to modify how it behaves. This can be simpler and less technical (although sligthly more destructive) than modifying the RGB colour curves, which has to be done with precision - I mean using the arrow keys, nudging points.

Curves can also be blended using Hue and Color blends, this is a very powerful approach, and has more practical benefit in RGB than Lum blend.

[longside1]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Luminosity blend mode is quite dangerous in RGB - what it does is add, or subtract EQUAL amounts of the three channels. This change is not modifiable. Luminosity is more useful in my experience, in CMYK because the balance it uses seems to be less damaging.

Not sure what your term "selective desat" means.

If you use a curve you can very successfully group either a hue/sat or a selective colour layer to your curve to modify how it behaves. This can be simpler and less technical (although sligthly more destructive) than modifying the RGB colour curves, which has to be done with precision - I mean using the arrow keys, nudging points.

Curves can also be blended using Hue and Color blends, this is a very powerful approach, and has more practical benefit in RGB than Lum blend.

Thanks for the advice, I'll try and give it a go. With regards "selective desat" I simply meant using a hue/saturation adjustment layer and desaturation only part of the image (masking the rest) to tone down the reddish brown areas....