articles/Landscape/dodgeburn-page3

Paul Gallagher dodge & burn - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Paul Gallagher Published 01/04/2006

Another method of dodging and burning, as devised by Dan Burkholder, is to first make a new layer and set the "Mode" in the dialoguewww box to "soft light", check the "fill with soft light neutral colour (50%)" and click okay. Then select a brush from the tools pallet, set the flow to about 5%. When you have the foreground colour in the tools pallet set to black and then brush over the image, it will gradually darken. Conversely when the foreground colour is set to white when you brush over the image, the area will gradually lighten. You can adjust the flow of the brush, and the hardness and size to suit your needs (FIG8).

A method I use is to select the Lasso tool from the tools pallet and apply a large feather prior to making a selection. Make a selection in the image and then click on the New Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers pallet and select Curves. As with the alpha channel method you can now "bend" the straight line until you achieve the desired tonal range in that part of the image and because it is an Adjustment Layer you can return to it later to make finer adjustments (by double clicking the icon in the Layers Palette).

It is worth noting that if you are aiming to burn or dodge at the edge of an image using the lasso tool you can hold down the alt key and select "off canvas" to prevent the having a localised "halo" effect on the inside edge of your image (FIG9).

• Paul Gallagher dodge & burn page 1
  
• Paul Gallagher dodge & burn page 2
  
• Paul Gallagher dodge & burn page 3
  

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