Dodge and Burn the Non-Destructive Way

There are times when some parts in a photo look overexposed and some look underexposed. You don’t want this to happen, especially in pretty important photos such as those from your wedding or any other special events. You can actually remedy these photo imperfections through the Dodge and Burn tools in your palette. Dodge can help lighten dark areas, and burn can help darken light areas. Problem is, using these can sometimes overdo the effects thus causing damage to the original photo.

Well, don’t worry because Photoshop is such a versatile photo editing software that it allows such processes to be done the non-destructive way. Here’s how:

1. Open the photo you want to edit in Photoshop.

2. Create a new layer. Usually, you’d do this by clicking on the New Layer icon in your Layers palette. However, for this tutorial, it’s better that you hold the ALT key and then click on New Layer so that you’d be directed to the dialog box. From there, set Mode to Overlay and then check the box for “Fill with Overlay-neutral color” so that you’d have a layer filled with 50% gray color. Rename the layer as well so that you won’t be confused. Press OK.

3. Select the Brush tool from your tools palette. Set white as your foreground color and then reduce brush Opacity to 10%.

4. Brush over the areas you want to lighten. For this tutorial, we’ve brushed over the cat’s face and the flower to make them appear brighter.

5. Set the foreground color to black. Brush over the areas you want to darken. For this tutorial, we’ve brushed over the vase make it appear darker.

6. Save and rename the photo.

Photo Credit: flowers 3 by xameron

Now you have subjects that are more apparent, and backgrounds that are more restrained without overdoing the dodge and burn technique.