Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Use when adding highlights and shading. Particularly useful for adding depth to close-ups.
Exercise files
There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.
Quick reference
Topic
The Burn and Dodge tools are great for working with faces. In this tutorial, we will show you how to use these tool in a non-destructive way.
When to use
Use when adding highlights and shading. Particularly useful for adding depth to close-ups.
Instructions
Create a new layer for non-destructive burning and dodging
- Create a new layer
- Enter the fill dialogue box with Shift-Delete or Shift-Backspace
- Go to the contents and select 50% gray.
- Change Blend Mode to Overlay
Using Burn and Dodge tools on gray layer
- Select the Burn tool: adjust the effect settings from the top bar (range of tones effect and exposure strength)
- Use burn to darken areas of the image below
- Use dodge to lighten areas of the image below.
Tip
Good for working with model photography. Also, by lightening or darkening the whole gray layer, you can non-destructively add effect the whole tone of the image.
Login to download
- 00:04 If you have been following my tutorials in the past,
- 00:06 you’ll know I'm a huge fan of non-destructive editing.
- 00:10 I've shown you guys how to add filters non-destructively using smart objects,
- 00:13 adjustment layers for non-destructive adjustments and how to crop your images
- 00:17 non-destructively.
- 00:19 Today I'm going to show you one the few non-destructive tips I have uncovered:
- 00:23 how to burn and dodge your photos non-destructively.
- 00:26 Now, before we begin I want to show you guys how burning and dodging is
- 00:29 traditionally done.
- 00:30 If I go over here to my Tools bar on the left I can grab my Dodge tool
- 00:34 or the Burn tool. The burn tool will darken areas of a photo
- 00:38 while the Dodge tool will brighten them. Let me grab the Burn tool first,
- 00:42 and on the Options bar at the top I can select which tones are being affected:
- 00:46 the shadows, the mid tones, or the highlights.
- 00:49 And over to the right I have the exposure, which is basically the strength.
- 00:54 Now once that's set I can start brushing my photo in the areas that I want to
- 00:58 darken.
- 00:58 Now, in this example, I'm going a little bit extreme just so you guys can see
- 01:02 over video
- 01:03 what exactly the burn and dodge tools do. So I'm going to darken up the areas to give her
- 01:07 a little bit more definition in her face.
- 01:09 And then once that's done I can switch over to the Dodge tool,
- 01:13 to bring some areas up, like the eyes
- 01:16 and maybe the lips and teeth. You get the idea.
- 01:19 Let me go to my History panel. Go to the first step,
- 01:23 and there's the before, and down here is the after.
- 01:26 So you can really see what burning and dodging do, especially if you're working
- 01:30 with models.
- 01:31 But the problem is this is very destructive. If I were to save this file,
- 01:35 close it and then open it up again, I'm stuck with what I see.
- 01:40 I can’t reverse this process easily. So let me show you, let me go all the way
- 01:44 back to the beginning,
- 01:45 and let me show you how to do this non-destructively.
- 01:48 First thing we're going to do in our Layers panel is we're going to create a new
- 01:52 layer just like this.
- 01:52 This layer is what we're going to be burning and dodging on.
- 01:56 Now, in order to do that we need to fill the layer with gray.
- 01:59 So I'm going to enter my fill dialogue with Shift-Delete or Shift-Backspace
- 02:03 I'm going to go to the contents and select 50% gray. I'm going to press OK .
- 02:07 So I will fill my whole entire document with gray.
- 02:11 Now, once that's done I'm going to change the blend mode of this layer
- 02:15 to overlay, and everything should disappear. But the nice thing is, because
- 02:19 it's 50% gray
- 02:20 we can now dodge and burn just like we did before,
- 02:23 but it's going to be non-destructive. So once again I can do the exact same thing.
- 02:28 I'm going to grab my Burn tool,
- 02:29 have the same setting selected and I'm going to start burning this photo just like
- 02:33 I did before, and you're going to notice
- 02:35 the burning is identical to what it was a little bit earlier.
- 02:38 I'm going to go over the nose to give a little more definition around the eyes.
- 02:42 And now I'm going to grab the Dodge tool. Again around the eyes,
- 02:46 down the nose and around the mouth. And again it's the exact same
- 02:51 burning and dodging as we did before, but this time it's now on its own layer
- 02:55 So let me go ahead and turn the blend mode back to normal so you can really see
- 02:58 what's going on.
- 02:59 It looks ridiculous, but these are our burns and dodges and when we have it set
- 03:04 to Overlay
- 03:04 it applies it to the layer below it. Now, the nice thing is, at any point in the
- 03:09 future, even if you save the document and then close and reopen it,
- 03:12 that layer is always going to be available to you. 61 00:03:16,490 --> 00:03:17,020 So you can easily hide that layer
- 03:16 to get rid of it, or in this case if the burning dodging is too extreme,
- 03:20 you can very easily decrease the opacity to get a much more subtle look.
- 03:25 So anybody out there who does a lot a model retouching and does a lot of burning
- 03:29 and dodging to their photos,
- 03:31 you definitely want to burn and dodge non-destructively,
- 03:34 just so you have the original layer incase you want to make changes later on.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.