Dodge and Burn

The dodge and burn tools are perfect for changing areas of light and shadow to give a more dramatic effect.

What these 2 tools do is darken or lighten the shadows, highlights or midtones of an image using a brush tool. Just some of these tools uses are to lighten harsh shadows, darken areas that are to light, create dramatic images by increasing the shadow areas, alter exposure problems and add depth a textured surface.

Open up this image in Photoshop

The dodge tool

The dodge tool is used to lighten areas of an image.

Select your dodge tool

Take note of the options at the top.

Select a brush size with a hardness or between 0-20%.

The range is what areas the tool will effect. So Shadows is the dark areas, Highlights are the lighter parts while Midtones are the areas in between. Choose shadows.

The exposure is how strong the tool is. Make it about 10% so that you have more control and don’t over do it.

What we want to do is lighten the shadows on the face area. Zoom into the apes face. Before you do anything else create a duplicate of the layer (right click > duplicate) and work on that. This way if any mistakes are made you can delete the layer, create a new duplicate and start again.

Work the brush carefully over the shadows. You should notice them start to lighten. Work over the areas repeatedly until you no longer have harsh shadowing over the face. This will give the image a more natural look by removing the harsh shadow.

If you had an image where you thought the highlights were to dark you could use this tool to lighten them a touch. Just make sure you change the Range to suit the area you are altering.

The burn tool

The burn tool does the opposite of what the dodge tool does. While the dodge tool lightens the burn tool darkens. Everything else about it is the same so its basically the dodge tool in reverse.

Select the burn tool.

The options at the top are the same as for the dodge tool. Set them as before. A soft brush with range set to Shadows and an exposure of 10%. Again, zoom into the face area

As before create a duplicate layer to work on. Work the burn tool in the same way as the dodge tool over the shadows on the face. The shadow should now become darker the more you go over it with the brush.

Using dodge and burn together

If your correcting exposure or giving your images more dramatic lighting you will often use both these tools together. This next example will show you how you can work them together to alter the lighting on your subject.

We will be using this image.

What we want to do is create a more dramatic lighting effect over the lady bug. We will make the shadows at the back a lot harsher and lighten some of the reflections on the front where the light is more prominent.

Select your burn tool. Create a duplicate layer. Set the range to Shadows. Using a soft brush and an exposure of 10% run the tool repeatedly over the back part of the bug until you have a nice dark shadow effect.

To carry this shadow on further and blend it more seamlessly change the range to Midtones. Duplicate the previous layer. Work the tool over the middle/back of the shell so you have a slowly progressing shadow over the bug.

Change to the Doge tool. Duplicate the last layer. Keep the range set to Midtones and run the tool over the front of the red shell to lighten it a touch. Then run the tool over the sky reflection on the bugs head to make it stand out more.

The final result should have a more dramatic shadow over the shell with a more prominent reflection on the head.

Dodge and Burn tips

Always create duplicate layers in case you make a mistake. I have said this several times for a reason. The last thing you want to do is make all your changes to one layer, make a few mistakes and have to start completely from the beginning.

Always keep the exposure at a low number (5-10%). Using a high number makes it much harder to blend well due to its strength.

Be careful on areas that are almost white or black. If you try and lighten an area to dark with the dodge tool it will just turn grey. The same will happen if you use the burn tool to darken a very white area. This is because it has no colour tones to work with.

Use the dodge tool to make catch lights in your subjects eyes stand out more. This is similar to making the reflection stand out on the bug above.

Use the burn tool to give something more depth. By slightly increasing the dark areas you can make an image stand out and appear less flat.

Use different size brushes. For larger areas, use a large brush with a very soft edge. This will create a more seamless blend into the areas you are not effecting.