Aug 13, 2006, 21:11
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships!
- Ansel Adams
I was reviewing the excellent photos from Assignment #15, Black and White, and some of Zig's images stopped me in my tracks. The photos were certainly good to begin with, but the post-production gave them tremendous impact. His trick was to heavily dodge and burn the photographs.
So that got me thinking....
Dodging and burning are classic darkroom techniques to selectively lighten and darken (respectively) the print. As with all things in photoshop, there are a many different ways to achieve these effects, and many different reasons to use them. For specifics, Google is your friend: a simple search turns up many, many pages full of good advice and different techniques. Find one that you like, or post your favourite method here, and try it out.
For the first time in an assignment, I'm not asking for you to take new photos. If you do, that's fantastic, but this is all about developing a promising negative into a polished image. So, take a look through your older photos, and find one or two that you would like to improve, or even take a favourite and decide to spend some extra time working on it. You'll be amazed at the effect it can have - I know I was.
- Ansel Adams
I was reviewing the excellent photos from Assignment #15, Black and White, and some of Zig's images stopped me in my tracks. The photos were certainly good to begin with, but the post-production gave them tremendous impact. His trick was to heavily dodge and burn the photographs.
So that got me thinking....
Dodging and burning are classic darkroom techniques to selectively lighten and darken (respectively) the print. As with all things in photoshop, there are a many different ways to achieve these effects, and many different reasons to use them. For specifics, Google is your friend: a simple search turns up many, many pages full of good advice and different techniques. Find one that you like, or post your favourite method here, and try it out.
For the first time in an assignment, I'm not asking for you to take new photos. If you do, that's fantastic, but this is all about developing a promising negative into a polished image. So, take a look through your older photos, and find one or two that you would like to improve, or even take a favourite and decide to spend some extra time working on it. You'll be amazed at the effect it can have - I know I was.