DSLR Photography Forum

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.

I'm looking forward to seeing some different ideas from this assignment. I dragged out this image intending to make it a high contrast black and white. However after heavily dodging the highlights and burning the shadows I prefered this colour version (not that there is much colour...)


This is a younger zebra peering over his mothers back, taken at the Adelaide Zoo.

Here's an image that I liked, but didn't do anything with.



A little work resulted in this:



My favourite method of dodging and burning involves creating a new 'overlay' layer, filled with a neutral 50% grey, and then painting on white or black to lighten or darken the tones. I used it to lighten the reflection, bring out some detail in the ceiling, and hide some of the floor. I also fixed the reason why I didn't use the photo in the first place, which was a really unflattering tan line on my arm, made worse by the angle and shadows. I'm really happy with the low-key final image.

I am a little disappointed to see a lack of responses to this assignment... I previously rarely used dodging and burning because I didn't really understand it. Having now played with it more (because of this assignment), it will be one of the finishing touches in post processing nearly all of my shots...especially black and white or sepia shots...

This is a recent shot of my sons that just wasn't taken well...


Following this assignment I dragged it out and had a play. A larger version is now on my desktop.


Drag out an old photo you like and give it a try.
This is a tutorial that I liked:
Tutorial

I usually make an effort with not much feedback

Smarti, I know what you mean about the participation, but I'm really glad to see that you've gotten something out of this one. I agree that this is a great tool (naturally), and if this assignment has added to your abilities, then it has done its job.

Pat, I do appreciate how you've been coming up with some great photos. I hope to be around more from now on, and start participating more myself.

The assignments haven't had the zip, or gotten the response, that they used to. Partly, I think it's because they're no longer a novelty, and partly it's because the subject matter is getting more and more exotic. I will be revisiting some of the older assignments, but these things happen. If anyone has any ideas that they'd like to see, let me know.

Hey smarti.. really awesome result that you got with that photo of the two boys... I really like it!

Great tutorial link as well - have to give that a whirl...

Sorry Matt, I appreciate the effort you go to organise these assignments, have been a tad busy of late, and haven't had much time to participate on the board as I usually would....keep it up though, I've got this assignment in mind and I'll try to post something tomorrow or the day after.