The Dodging and Burning Technique

You can apply this technique to pictures digital images taken in black and white, or to those taken in color and converted to mono later. It's great for improving contrasts and producing striking areas within the picture, however it's important to remember that although dodging and burning can be used to improve an image, it cannot work miracles, so your original image must be of a decent quality to begin with. We always suggest taking time to get the shot right when you take the snap. It'll make any editing easier and ultimately produce a better final image.

So how do we use the 'Dodging & Burning' technique? Firstly open your picture in a digital editing program and find the Dodging & Burning Tool. You might like to use the programs 'auto contrast' or 'one click fix' button first. This may just improve your image slightly before you start the dodging and burning. Its normally a good idea to let the program balance your image first in this way.

If you are able, it will be useful be to print a copy of your image first and mark the areas you want to enhance. A paper copy is easier to work with than the on screen version. Mark the areas of the printed version that are highlights and shadow. When Dodging & Burning you are trying to increase the contrasts in the picture, so having lots of grey areas isn't the desired effect. Also do not overkill the area selections.

Choose a few areas you think could be improved, but be selective. Dodging & Burning should be very subtle so use no more than 6% opacity on the brush, and be sure to use lots of sweeping strokes to keep the effect even and blended. Using large brushes helps too, around 400 to 500 diameter soft brushes are best. The opacity and brush settings are variable in all editing programs that allow dodging and burning, so don't worry if your not sure what this means. You'll spot them when you select the dodge and burn tool.

You may not notice too much difference, that is until you place your final print next to the original print. You'll be amazed at the improvement! Finally, this is a guide to standard 'Dodging & Burning' but as with every aspect of digital photography, experiment for your self! Try different images, try different opacities and try different brush types! The more you experiment and practice, the better you'll become, and the better you'll be at identifying areas of images that would benefit most from a little Dodging & Burning!