Learning curve ~ cloning and burning

[JBW]

[Loose Canon]

Brian, don't forget dodging.

A nice job but you miss half the equation if you don't burn, clone, and dodge.

[JBW]

Brian, don't forget dodging.

A nice job but you miss half the equation if you don't burn, clone, and dodge.

Okay, I hate to admit my ignorance bur here I am doing just that. Cloning and burning I do to tone down overly bright areas. What would I use dodging for?

[Loose Canon]

You might use the dodge tool to generally brighten dark areas Brian. Or to bring out highlights locally. Probably with what you do it would more likely be used on the subject rather than the background.

A good tool to have in your Bag O’ Tricks!

[Mike Buckley]

The other tool that is helpful, especially when burning, is to desaturate the burned area slightly. More often than not, I apply desaturation to relatively large areas but sometimes desaturating a small area that has been burned helps to blend that area with its surroundings.

[Shadowman]

Nice attempts.

[JBW]

You might use the dodge tool to generally brighten dark areas Brian. Or to bring out highlights locally. Probably with what you do it would more likely be used on the subject rather than the background.

A good tool to have in your Bag O’ Tricks!

so a good dodge is like a local sharpening... sometimes.

[Mike Buckley]

so a good dodge is like a local sharpening... sometimes.

No. The results are very different.

[ajohnw]

The terms come from working with prints on an enlarger Brian. Dodge - block light to some parts of the image so darken them. Burn - the opposite. Using the brushes in PP just applies these effects where the brush is run over the image with opacity setting how quickly they build up in the GIMP, also the exposure setting at the bottom - not that I have used that.

There are a couple of other things you could do to the image. There is a blur / sharpen brush. The blur brush can be used to soften the leaf detail. It works slowly at default settings. I did one but can't post images at the moment. Starting with a brush about 20mm dia run it repeatedly along the veins in the leaf and it's edges not running over the insect. Just go fairly close. Then say 1/2 that size and work between the legs etc and all over the leaf to even things up. It helps to have the original image open in something else as you wont notice the effect building up. Just aim to soften the detail slightly. This will make the insect stand out a little more.

You could then switch the brush to sharpen and do a little on the insect itself. Pick a brush size of about the same size as the body of the insect. You can use that size briefly on the rest of it as most effect tends to be in the centre. it seems to have some intelligence in this area.

Best do these steps after what you are currently doing and not over do them.

John
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[Loose Canon]

so a good dodge is like a local sharpening... sometimes.

I'd say kind of yes and no Brian.

As Mike said the results are different technically, but the overall effect can give a kind of "illusion" of sharpness due to contrast enhancement.

...sometimes.

[ajohnw]

My upload seems to have started working again. Odd just reinstalled Opera, same version.




John
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[Manfred M]

I'm not particularly enamoured with the Photoshop implementation of dodge and burn; the tools need to be used carefully, especially the dodge tool, as it pays no attention to the underlying colours and just builds up gray.

The other issue I have with both tools is that they are both destructive and permanently change the pixels.

The tools work, but need a light touch and carefully handling.

[Polar01]

Manfred nice little article on Dodge and Burning in Photoshop using layers, I may try this method as it is down on a layer so no destructive or permanent changes.

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/h...-in-photoshop/

Cheers: Allan

[ajohnw]

There are other GIMP methods such as this one but frankly I go slowly and use the undo history to recover mistakes..In real terms the tool does the same thing directly and dodge can always be undone with burn etc. It also has low,mid and high tone select modes. I usually use an opacity of 10% and exposure at 50.

http://www.gimptalk.com/index.php?/t...odge-and-burn/

At each stage of a separate process I also usually create a duplicate layer. The lot can be saved including history I think but so far I haven't found the need.

John
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[chauncey]

I'm not particularly enamoured with the Photoshop implementation of dodge and burn; the tools need to be used carefully, especially the dodge tool, as it pays no attention to the underlying colours and just builds up gray.

The other issue I have with both tools is that they are both destructive and permanently change the pixels.

The tools work, but need a light touch and carefully handling.

In total agreement with ya Manfred...curves/levels with their associated masks are less heavy handed.
As a side note...using a B&W adjustment layer set to luminance works quite well.

[Manfred M]

Manfred nice little article on Dodge and Burning in Photoshop using layers, I may try this method as it is down on a layer so no destructive or permanent changes.

http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/h...-in-photoshop/

Cheers: Allan

Allan - I was referring specifically to the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop, not other non-destructive techniques. I will often a technique where I duplicate the layer and use the Multiply blending mode to for burning and the Screen blending mode for dodging. I add a layer mask and just bring out enough of the content to lgihten / darken things up. If things are not bright enough, adding a second Screen blending mode layer lightens things even more.

The advantage of the using this non-destructive technique is that rather than using white or gray, the tone family is preserved by the blending mode and get darkening or lightening without having to worry about colours.


Another technique that I use a lot, when doing landscape work and shooting using a tripod is that I will bracket and work with -2 0 +2 stop images, again with layer masks to darken and lighten parts of the image, as required. In the shot below, I use the three image with layer masks technique.



The nice thing about Photoshop is that there are many different approaches that let one solve PP problems.