| Taking the image we used in the
first tutorial we can now set
to work dodging and burning certain areas of the image as one would in a
traditional darkroom. First off, create open the layers palate. Window>Layers. or press F7. Next create an empty layer. Shift+CTRL+N Right click on the layer and rename it 'burn'. |
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| Set the layer style to 'Overlay'
Select your brush tool (B) and set it's opacity to around 20% and it's colour to Black. Setting your brush hardness to 0% gives a nice smooth edge. Don't forget we are trying to recreate burning by hand and one would most likely use ones hands in the traditional darkroom for general burning in (at least I do..:) ) |
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| Now we can start to burn in the areas we wish to. I have chosen to
darken the front grass area and the top of the sky. I tend to find
that small quick stokes with a large soft brush work best. Remember,
take it slowly and it'll look far better. Build up lots of small
changes. Don't try to burn too much too quickly. See the difference in the
sky and the foreground.
I prefer contrasty images, you may prefer something less hard. Use your discretion. |
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| Now that I have burnt in the areas I want I will now dodge (hold back)
a few to give some depth to the tonal range. I think I will lighten the
tree in the foreground. Make it a bit less oppressive.
Again, make a new empty layer and call it 'dodge' once again set the Layer to 'Overlay' and this time paint with white. Notice how around the edges of the tree there is a halo? You want to avoid this as it makes the image untidy. You'll see I've lightened the tree and the grass 'V' leading to it's base. One thing you must remember is that you cannot burn in details where there are none. For example, the cloud in the background has no detail in the original (well very little actually) This technique cannot magically reproduce detail. As the saying goes 'You can make a bad print from a good negative, but not a good print from a bad negative' The Trick to using Photoshop effectively is to initially take correctly exposed, well composed photographs. Remember this and your output through Photoshop will be far better. |
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| I have fixed up the halo around the tree (remember, you can use the
eraser tool if you wish, after all you are only erasing white 'paint' in
the dodge layer, not the image itself)
Compare the image with what we started with and I think (hope!) you'll agree is a better looking image. Feel free to experiment with different layer styles and also, if you want a really contrasty image, duplicate your image instead of an empty layer. This gives you VERY dark images, but using the dodge technique you can coax out some wonderful detail. Examples can be seen on my site or here |
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