299 Nondestructive dodge and burn

Hey Gang, this is Deke McClleland. Welcome to Deke's Techniques. This week, we're going to take that big panorama that we've been working on. And we're going to enhance the drama of the scene using what's known as non-destructive dodging and burning. Here, let me show you exactly how it works. Just so you have a chance to see both of these images on screen. Here's the version of the stitched together panorama that I've managed to create so far. And here's the significantly more dramatic version of that same composition.

We're going to start things off by adding a couple of adjustment layers. Press Shift+tab in order to bring back my right side panels including the Layers panel here. And then I'll drop down to the black and white circular icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. I'll press and hold the Alt key or the Option key on the Mac. And I'll choose the levels command and because I've the alt or option down that brings up the new layer dialog box and I'll just call this new layer drama and click OK. And then here inside the Properties panel, I'll go ahead and make the panel a little larger by dragging on the bottom left corner.

And then I'll click inside the gamma value, this middle value right there, and press Shift+down arrow twice in order to reduce the gamma value to 0.8. Next, we want to add a Vibrance layer. So, press and hold the Alt key, or the Option key on the Mac. Once again, click on the black white icon, and then choose the vibrance command. Again, if you have the Alt-Option key down, that will bring up the new layer dialogue box. And I'm just going to call this layer saturation and then I'll click OK. And I'll take the vibrance value up to a whopping 75.

I figure there's no reason to be subtle. And then I'll take the saturation value up to plus10 in order to produce the effects you see on screen. Now I'll go ahead and hide the Properties panel. And so just to give you sense of what we've been able to accomplish so far with this little bit of work. I'll turn both of the adjustment layers off. This is how the image looked just a moment ago. And if I turn those layers back on, this is what it looks like now. But that's not enough. Now, we need to selectively brighten and darken portions of the image.

What's known as dodging and burning, respectively. But we're going to do so non-destructively using an independent layer. So I'll start by clicking on the Guggenheim layer to make it active. And then I'll press Ctrl+Shift+N or Cmd+Shift+N on the Mac to bring up the new layer dialogue box and I'll go ahead and call this layer dodge and burn and then I'll click OK. Alright, we'll start things off by dodging. And here's how that works. Normally you use the dodge tool. But both the dodge tool and the burn tool, which is also available from this Flyout menu here.

They're both destructive. In other words, they permanently modify the pixels in your image. They do so very well, by the way. But, let's say you don't want to make any permanent modifications. Well, in that case you want an independent layer, just as we've created. And then you want to switch to the brush tool. And now we need to increase the heck out of the size of the cursor. So I'll press and hold the right bracket key until I get a big huge brush like this. And as you can see, it's currently 1600 pixels. You can see that on the far left side of the Options bar up here.

Might not want it to be quite that big, so let's say I'll take it down to 1200 pixels. You can also just right-click inside the Image window and dial that size value in. We need a hard disk value of 0% that is very important. Now you want to press the D key to establish your default foreground color which is black and then press the X key in order to switch the foreground and background colors so that your foreground color is white. And now let's say I want to brighten this area in the pool, in front of the museum.

I'll just go ahead and paint with white like so. Now that may look like way too much brightening. It's certainly not in any way shape or form a photo realistic effect so here's what you do. The first step is to change the blend mode here in the Layers panel from normal to overlay. Or you can also try soft light. That can sometimes produce a nice effect. In our case though, we want overlay because we want those brightly saturated colors. Now we don't want that much brightness. That's over the top, of course.

So I'll just go ahead and press the Esc key here on the PC, so that the blend mode is no longer active. And then I'll press the M key to switch back to the rectangular marquee tool. And now I'll try different opacity values, which you can dial in by pressing the number keys of the keyboard. For example if I press the 5 key, I'll take the opacity of that layer down to 50% which looks okay. But I still think that's too much. So, what I usually do is, I start by pressing the 1 key in order to take the opacity down to 10%. And then I try pressing the 2 key for 20%, the 3 key for 30%, and so forth.

And in my estimation anyway, an opacity of 30% works out beautifully. Now I'm going to burn in the museum, because basically what's happening here is the top of the museum, and this is a beautiful museum by the way, in Bilbao, Spain. But we're losing some of the detail up left to the sky. And so I'd like to make it up by adding more contrast, which means selectively darkening the exterior. So I'll go ahead and select that brush tool once again. And now I'll press the X key in order to switch the foreground color to black.

So the idea is you paint with white in order to dodge. And then you paint with black, as you're seeing me do right here in order to burn. And you'll end up burning into the sky as well as into the building, which is just fine, because if you ever feel like you go too far, all you need to do is erase. And I say erase instead of adding a layer mask, because heaping on a layer mask at this point would just be too elaborate. So, I'll go ahead and switch to the eraser tool. And I'll right click inside the image window and I'll take the size value let's say up to maybe 800 pixels.

And then, I'll take the hardness value down to 0%, once again, very important. And then I'll press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac. And the reason the hardness of 0% is very important is because we want soft transitions. If we end up with hard transitions, we will see our brushstrokes, and that's no good. And now I'll just paint in the sky in order to brighten it up. Because after all, I'm erasing away that black. And I'll paint inside the stairs, because I don't want them to get too dark either. And now I'm going to increase the heck out of my brush until it's a whopping 3,000 pixels, like so.

And I'll just click here inside the building over on the right-hand side in order to brighten it. I end up clicking in the water a little bit, so I'll just go ahead and switch back to the brush tool. Very easy to resolve. And I'll press the X key in order to switch the foreground color back to white because I want to brighten the water a little more, and then I'll paint inside the water like so. And I may paint down a little bit as well. And maybe paint into this crevice if I can, but I don't want to end up making this wall too bright necessarily.

kind of want to keep it dark, so I'll go ahead and zoom in to this region right there, and I'll switch back to the eraser tool. So it's just a lot of switching back and forth. And I'll press and hold the left bracket key in order to reduce the size of my brush and I'll just paint inside of this region in order to erase away that brightness. Let's go ahead and zoom out perhaps not that far, but about right there. Press the M key to switch back to the rectangular marquee tool and just so you can see the difference here, I'll turn off this dodge and burn layer, that's how the panorama looked just a few minutes ago.

But now thanks to a bit of non-destructive, selective brightening and darkening, we end up with this final effect here. Which becomes even more impressive if I go ahead and press the F key a couple of times in order to switch to the full screen mode and perhaps zoom in a click as well. And that is the final version of our dramatic panorama enhanced using a combination of a couple of adjustment tools, along with some non-destructive dodging and burning here inside Photoshop.

Alright, so there's that. What's next? Well, next week, I'll show you how to take an object that's casting a shadow against a white background. And how to move that object and its shadow against any other background you like, not only inside Photoshop, but inside programs that don't support Photoshop's brand of transparency, including PowerPoint. And the key note. Teach techniques each and every week. Keep watching.