Dodge and Burn

[Hugo Leveille]

Hi everyone

I'd like to know if there is a difference between normal dodge and burn and creating a 50% grey layer overlay.

Cause i'm looking for tips on dodging and burning on color pictures. In b&w, its easy, but in color, you can make a mess really quickly !

Thanx!

[Doug Nelson]

Personally I avoid the dodge and burn tools. They're destructive, noisy, and unpredictable. The method you mentioned is my favorite, although all the various contrast blending modes (except hard mix) can be used this same way, to varying effects.

[sPECtre]

Of course I couldn't agree more with doug.. Always choose the non-destructive way, it is the zen of the layers...

You can check if there is a diffrence with a duplicate of the image, altered using dodge/burn, and overlay, and compare using the info palette.

I recall also Jeff Schewe showing that 38% opacity in Screen or multiply is very similar to a 1 stop difference...

He does not allow direct linking to his tutorials, but just search in Google for "color correction insights" all you'll have a lot of good info...

[roger_ele]

My fav is also overlay - but on a empty layer (thanks Flora)

When done, Control-alt/opt-shift E to merge image seen into overlay active layer. The blending mode will change to normal by itself, change it to Luminosity and you will get the change in brightness as painted without a change in saturation or a 'greyness' that sometimes happens.

[Hugo Leveille]

wow, that 38% screen process really can save some picture that levels can't!

[gmitchel]

I just created a QuickTime tutorial on Dodging & Burning with an overlay layer.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/samples/dodge&burn.mov

It's my first. I welcome comments and suggestions.

I'm having difficulty with the audio. Specifically, I'm having trouble getting audio free from background noise from the laptop I'm using to generate the videos. The fan is audible.

I've ordered a radio mic like the announcers on TV use. The kind that clips to your back. I'm hoping it will cancel the noise or be insensitive to it. Right now I'm using a lapel electret condenser mic.

If this is well-received and I can get a solution for cleaner audio, I'll do more video tutorials.

Anyway, feel free to have a look and give me your thoughts.

Cheers,

Mitch

Hi everyone

I'd like to know if there is a difference between normal dodge and burn and creating a 50% grey layer overlay.

Cause i'm looking for tips on dodging and burning on color pictures. In b&w, its easy, but in color, you can make a mess really quickly !

Thanx!

[Klaatu Baradda]

Where Have All The Good Links Gone... Long Time Passing

I just created a QuickTime tutorial on Dodging & Burning with an overlay layer.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/samples/dodge&burn.mov

It's my first. I welcome comments and suggestions.

Hi Mitch,
Did you ever get this worked out? The link seems to be dead now.

[gmitchel]

It's available.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials-video.htm

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Mitch

[edgework]

The only time I've found the Dodge/Burn tools to be appropriate is when I'm cleaning up a mask, particularly when isolating type from a background. If the background is lighter than the type, dodging highlights will attack the background pixels before the darker letterforms. Likewise burning shadows to darken letters.

But in actual images, they're useless.

[NancyJ]

If you're having trouble with colour, covert to LAB and makes copies of the L, A & B channels, you can then work on them separately in greyscale and then paste them back into the image. Very effective for all sorts of problems, as working in greyscale is always easier than working with colour.