Burning

[morekatz]

I'm new to Elements. Is it "normal" that burning blackens its subject instead of darkening the color that is present? Conversely, dodging seems to turn things white.

[Carbone]

Yes, at least, I've learned to work with those tools in this way.

Ray

[morekatz]

Thank you.

[ATR]

Once you feel comfortable with your set up, you may want to try the following which will give you better control over the results you get with the Burn and Dodge Tools. The following was in a recent Photoshop Elements Techniques Newsletter.

Open your photo and duplicate (Control J) so that you will not be working on the original. This duplicate is on Layer designated Layer 1.
Next, click on the More button to the top right of the Layers Palette and select New Layer from the drop down list.
In the resulting dialog box, name, change mode from Normal to Overlay, and make sure the “Fill with Overlay neutral color (50% Gray)" is checked off.
With Layer 2 (gray layer) selected, apply Burn or Dodge Tool to darken or lighten areas of choice.

ATR

[TonyW]

I do find that the default Exposure of 50% is way over what I normally use to touch up areas. Try 10% and you get a much more subtle and useful result. Also you'll find a big difference between highlights, midtones and shadows. Since highlights tend to be white they have no colour so just go blacker. Midtones have the most colour so you'll preserve more colour when you dodge or burn.

Tony

[Carbone]

I am much more conservative than that, I start at 3-5%

Ray

[Stringbean]

I would like to know what is exactly happening when overlay is used?

[Carbone]

I am not sure that I am understanding this.. there is no overlay mode in the dodge or burn tool.

Ray

[ATR]

Hi there Carbone,

Sure there is no Overlay in the Dodge and Burn Tools, but there is that technique described in a recent Newsletter...getting more control over Dodge and Burn Tool results using Overlay mode and checking off Fill with Overlay neutral color (50% Gray).......I pointed out this technique a few posts ago in this Thread.

Check out Photoshop Elements Techniques Newsletter, Volume 2, Number 8, page 22, for more details.

ATR

[Carbone]

Sorry, ATR, I didn't see the exact relation with your link.

Ray

[ATR]

Carbone,

I felt a little guilty not offering an answer to the question. Instead I took the easy way out and just gave the reference.

To lessen my guilt, I did some looking for, maybe, a better view of the procedure.

www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials/GetYourDodgingAndBurningUnderControl.pdf -
Check this out and let me know what you think. Besides the Overlay business, it gave me some insights into the Burn and Dodge Tools options in the Options Bar that I never really appreciated.

ATR

[Stringbean]

Your correct ATR when you assumed that I was referring to your post. Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that. I printed out your post and had no problem following it but was curious about what was actually happening. Seems that I have some reading to do after your second post.

Hope I didn’t highjack this thread! :)

[Carbone]

ATR,

I already new about this technique, in fact, I used this often for other stuff, when I wanted to keep the drop shadow but make the text disapear, for example. I will use the text tool, gray (109-109-109), add a drop shadow, set mode to overlay, text disapears, shadow remains.

Until I discovered the Inviside attribute layer style.. :)

Ray