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TIPS & TRICKS No. 3 - Dodging & Burning

Tim Armes

New member
This thread is part of the Tips & Tricks problematics. See here for more information.

Hi all,

One for the beginners this week. There are many techniques for simulating dodging and burning using Photoshop, so I thought I'd try to collect them together. The real benefit of doing this isn't to learn 20 differents ways to do the same thing, but to understand how and why those 20 different ways work. As your skills grow, you'll be able to apply these ideas to other more involved techniques that may have nothing to do with dodging and burning.

So, please tell us how you dodge and burn and why you like your method...

Tim
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
Hi Tim,

For dodge and burn, I started to use - instead of PS - more and more LightZone - with its different Blend modes and sometimes regions, which would be called selections in PS.. The blending modes include - just a example - the shadows only.
 

Tim Armes

New member
For dodge and burn, I started to use - instead of PS - more and more LightZone - with its different Blend modes and sometimes regions, which would be called selections in PS.. The blending modes include - just a example - the shadows only.

Hi,

It's true that Photoshop doesn't always offer the ultimate solution for every conceivable task, and that there are other products that provide better solutions to certain problems. LightZone is indeed a very interesting application, providing a good set of tools that'll meet the needs of many people.

That said, I don't like to have to switch between applications to perform different things. Dodging and burning is normally one of the last retouches that I perform, and as with and other change I make, I prefer to keep the modifications on a separate layer, so that I can make changes afterwards.

If I were to switch to LightZone for this task, I'd have a hard time maintaining my set of changes. I'd need to save the current PS version with all the layers, then create a flattened version for importing into LightZone. If I'd then like to tweak my PS layers, I'd have to go through the the whole task again.

But otherwise your point is valid. For those not interesting in using Photoshop, LightZone may be a good solution.

Tim
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
Asher
I can provide some screenie's later, need all the cpu's for stitching...

Tim
I can understand your doubts, as I had them too.
At the end, it all comes down how accurate and how fast (clients waiting) you can do the edits. Off course, changing apps is a thing that nobody is looking for. But I found, that LZ is doing certain things better/faster, because it's so different from PS, because there's a different philisophy behind it:

You might save your edits as templates ("comparable" to PS-actions), including regions (selections) and apply it on other images; unlike copying a selection in PS, LZ will use - in the regions - the image content from image b, c, d .... You still will be able to edit this templates on the individual image, save it, and come back later to correct it, even the region's form!!

A example: 2 weesks ago, I did some architecture modell shots; a competition, therefore the same ground configuration, with individual proposals from different architects, and for better comparison, all taken from the same viewing angle. Contrast/brightness is very hard to control, (white gypsum) if you' re on location, unless you bring 2 vans with all the studio's equipement.

Bigger tonal adjustements are required; in PS it would have taken me hours, do do them on every single model.
In LZ, I "draw" the corrections (regions/selections) ONE TIME, applied them on the other images, that was it.

In that case, obviously LZ is way faster than PS, even one has to switch the app.

So LZ has its merits and, personally spoken its place in my workflow.
Talking about d & b, it offers better and faster tools than PS-CS-2. I'm not saying you can't do it in PS, but after a while (it takes time to get used to it, after several years of PS-thinking) I liked it much more.
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Michael,

Are you keeping LZ updated? I almost bought it at the end of last year, but it was very slow in editing individual pictures, I tended to think it was due to being written in Java. However, the interface to much of it was very intuitive (except the selection process) maybe I need to revisit, if they are still there. (another concern of mine, the viability long term of being able to use the side files.) But as you say, once you've set up for a set of images, dead quick - something like qimage is wrt printing. If LZ offered a few more features, then I would get by with dpp, LZ and qimage

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
Hi Michael,

Are you keeping LZ updated? I almost bought it at the end of last year, but it was very slow in editing individual pictures, I tended to think it was due to being written in Java. However, the interface to much of it was very intuitive (except the selection process) maybe I need to revisit, if they are still there. (another concern of mine, the viability long term of being able to use the side files.) But as you say, once you've set up for a set of images, dead quick - something like qimage is wrt printing. If LZ offered a few more features, then I would get by with dpp, LZ and qimage

Best wishes,

Ray

I bought the Retouch-Version (today: LZ basic, whithout filebrowser) about a year ago; at the beginning, due to JAVA VM-bugs, it was really slow, and even crashed, with big files. But then they debugged it, so it run pretty good. These days, I worked on 400 MB-files in LZ; and IMO PS is not faster (Thats with a Quad & 8 Gigs of RAM)

Actually, I din't had to pay for a update, as they provided it free, even LZ is getting better and better, with every release. At the beginning, I found it interesting, now It's used every day.

Another example: B & W. Sometimes clients wants to have color, but often it ends up being printed in B & W: Using some different °convert to B&W- templates°, and you' re done - in 5 minutes...but its way more than a quick desaturation.

The other day, shooting Magnolias on a plaza: Everythin arround the Magnolia looked brighter and more colorfull, than that old tree. So here's what I did: drawing the form of the Magnolia as a region, applying 50 % the b&W-tool; inverted: the Magnolia looks already more colorfull. Copying the inverted region on the Zonemapper, darkening the rest. Saving as a template, and using it on the other shots, just redrawing a bit the regions: The Magnolia shines.

For these things I startet d to like LZ, beeing aware, that its not replacing PS, as I need to correct for lens distortions. But for the rest, I could slowly imagine.....
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Michael,

Thanks for that. I'll see if I can get another trial from them. Maybe this time round they need to see the colour of my money ;-)

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
Just give it a try; and have a look at Uwe' s site. It has plenty of hints.

So now, how are the other photographers dodging and burning?
 

Tim Armes

New member
Hi Guys,

Can we please try to keep this thread on course. The objective of these Tips & Tricks threads is to help explain retouching techniques to those looking for solutions. This particular thread is intended to be a home for dodging and burning techniques.

LightZone is a valuable tool, but I prefer that we discuss it's merits in another thread (unless, of course, you wish to talk about dodging and burning with Lightroom).

Cheers,

Tim
 

Chip Springer

New member
I have Paint With Light actions I and II at www.atncentral.com. One benefit of using it over dodge and burn tools is that you can PWL in color. You can fix minor problems or make the image very dramatic.

examples...
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=14137115

Shadow fixes
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=13703467
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=11546340
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=15636722

It is also used to fix TIPS 1-4.
 
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