One of my 10 Photography Goals for 2010 was to learn more about post production editing using Adobe Photoshop. A long time ago I worked for an Advertising Agency and I was trained to use Photoshop 4 (that shows how long ago it was!), Photoshop has moved on a lot since then and my knowledge is very rusty. I really need to brush up my skills so I can get the most out of my images.

I know there can be a lot of debate about post processing and how much we should or shouldn’t do with our photographs, should we get it right in the camera first or should we sort any problems out later, and at the end of the day it’s down to personal taste. But I don’t have a problem with post processing digital photographs, because a lot of the processes that digital post processing software uses are techniques that were used in the darkroom for printing, long before digital was even invented. They have just been transferred into the digital realm, like Dodge and Burn. I’ve never used the Dodge and Burn tools before so they seemed a good place to start improving my skills.

What are the Dodge and Burn Tools used for?

The Dodge and Burn tools are used to lighten or darken areas of an image rather than say Levels and Curves which affect the whole image. The Dodge tool lightens the pixels that are painted, and the Burn tool darkens the pixels that are painted.

The reason I chose these tools to learn more about from all the tools available in Photoshop was because of a botched shot! I was taking a food shot for a DPS Forum Assignment which just happened to be my husbands lunch…it’s not easy shooting food photography while trying to hold my hungry husband back at the same time! I just had time to quickly snap a couple of shots off before he ran off with his lunch (fair enough I suppose), but nobody told me food photography could be dangerous?

Anyway the lighting on the shot was awful and Levels could only do so much. So that’s when I turned to the Dodge tool. Take a look, this is the before shot:

See what I mean! I didn’t have time to use any reflectors as you can tell from the huge shadows.

What can I do to fix this?

Select the Dodge tool from the tools palette on the left and select which brush and size you want to use, I use a feathered brush as I don’t want any hard edges. The size of brush you use will change depending on the image, and that’s the same with the exposure setting which effect how hard or soft the pixels are altered.

Now before you do anything create a new layer, Layer – New – Layer and change the mode to Overlay then check the box that says ‘fill with overlay-neutral colour (50% gray)’. Make sure you paint in this layer and not on the background layer, then if you make a mistake or want to change the effect it’s dead easy – just trash the layer, or you could have two layers one for Dodging and one for Burning. Either way it’s better than messing around with undo and step backward to fix any problems. And it lets me have a play around with them and try out different effects, or make mistakes without any worry.

When it comes to Range there are 3 choices – Highlights, Midtones and Shadows, if you want to alter the highlights range use the Dodge tool, and if you want to alter the shadows range use the Burn tool, midtones can be adjusted with either tool.

This is the after shot and I’ve only edited it with the Dodge and Burn tools, as you can see I’ve regained the detail on the left side of the pancake and toned down that shadow, it’s all a matter of taste as to how far you go with it. I wanted to keep it quite natural just toned down.

I love these tools and I can see huge possibilities to enhance and use these tools in a more artistic way with my images, like using them to highlight the focal point of an image or part of a shot instead of correcting bad lighting and mistakes!

Do you have any examples of where you’ve used the Dodge and Burn tools, please post a link to them in the comments…

Mandy

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How to use the Dodge and Burn Tools in Photoshop

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1. Camera Colour Features v’s Photoshop

My camera has an option to change the colour settings of the camera to full colour, black & white or sepia. So I went out to give them a try as I have’nt used them before. These three photographs are the result. It was a dull day and it was raining so I picked a subject that was full of colour to give greater contrast.

I used to sometimes shoot in black and white film on my old camera so it’s nice to be able to just flick between the two (colour and black and white) whenever I feel like it.

Although the detail is good I don’t think I would shoot a lot in sepia unless for a specific need.

But if shooting in black and white or sepia solely and not using colour for that subject then there is no turning back.

Once you get home you can’t add the colour again so it’s something to think about.

But you can always shoot in colour (as well) and then change it later in Photoshop, or is that cheating!

Photoshop

These next three photographs have been produced in Photoshop Elements, the black and white and sepia anyway. So you can compare the two sets of photographs.

The full colour photograph is in RGB colour.

The black and white one has had the colour removed in the colour adjustment palette.

And the sepia one has been created in the colour adjustment palette by adding blue and red.

If you were comparing all six photographs together I don’t think you could guess which was which if you didn’t know beforehand. The first three look a little sharper but that could be the subject, to properly compare I should have used the same photo but I thought that would look a little monotonous.

So I think it’s down to a question of taste – camera or Photoshop (whichever version you prefer). I think I would choose photoshop because it gives a bit more flexibility, but that’s easy to say as I have used it a lot.

But one thing I will say is the Photoshop Elements produced photos uploaded to my blog a lot quicker than the ones that were produced on the camera.

Mandy

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Camera Colour Features v’s Photoshop

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1. How to use the Dodge and Burn Tools in Photoshop
2. Do you ever feel held back with your Photography?
3. How Well Do You Know Your Camera?

This post is the second in a three part series looking at taking, editing and sharing digital photographs. The first part covered taking an image and this post is going to look at editing an image. These subjects are huge and could easily have (and do) a whole blog dedicated to them. So I am just looking at introducing them and what I like about them.

Editing

Being able to upload my photographs onto my computer and then edit them has become very easy to do and the norm. But if I just think back a couple of years none of this was possible, at least not without spending a fortune on the equipment needed to do it. But luckily enough I am living in an age where all this is possible and at a very reasonable price.

Not only that but there is a huge range of software available to choose from to be able to edit my photographs with. From free software that comes with the camera to spending hundreds of pounds on industry standard software like Adobe Photoshop.

Editing is close to my heart because I used to work in an advertising agency and used Adobe Photoshop a lot. I trained at college to become an apple mac operator which included using Adobe Photoshop, Quark and Adobe Illustrator. I love what can be done with these software packages and how easy it is to produce a result with them. Although I can’t afford any of them myself, I use Photoshop Elements for my editing needs.

Why do I want to edit photographs?

When I first heard about editing digital photographs I still used film and I thought why would I want to fiddle about with my photographs and add things or erase things from them. I thought it was, I suppose cheating. I didn’t like the idea of ‘faking a photograph’. But there is a lot more to editing images than just cutting out and sticking somebody’s head onto another body!

But once I took the time to look at editing closely and then have a go myself, I realised it is a great tool for photographers. For instance red eye is no longer a problem, and that’s great especially when it comes to taking snapshot pictures of kids. It can be bad enough just trying to capture them, never mind worrying about red eye!

Editing photographs gives me huge potential for what I can do with a photograph and I realised that when I worked at the advertising agency. Whether it’s removing red eye from a snapshot or producing photographs for a full colour brochure, it can be done and it’s really good fun to just have a play around to see what I can create, with the software available these days it’s practically the sky is the limit for what I could do. I now love what editing photographs, and the software I use can produce.

Cropping a photograph can really change the emphasis, or allow me to zoom in on a feature or just get rid of that unwanted object that I couldn’t avoid.

Here’s a photograph I was just messing around with showing the before and after shots, it gives the image a focal point that wasn’t obvious in the first image.

Framing the photograph and adding a caption really makes it stand out, and is great for sharing holiday snaps as well as reminding me where, when or what they were. Or it could even be enlarged for a print.

This is only a sample of what can be achieved with editing photographs, and as I said earlier a whole blog could be devoted to it.

This is my introduction to editing and I am sure I will talk about it again in the future because I enjoy it so much!

Mandy

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Digital Photography Part 2

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1. Digital Photography Part 1
2. Digital Photography Part 3
3. Taking, Editing, Sharing Digital Photography