J O N A T H A N wrote:
Dodge and burn too much will altar colors so it has to be done carefully... burning will start to altar and even darken/saturate colors and cannot just go back a dodge over it because it wont like undo the burn it just dodges the burned and then will start getting ashy...

What about using dodge and burn techniques to intentionally alter color?  What blend modes add saturation? 

I'm experimenting..  I'm not perfect at what I do by any means, but I've gotten to the point where I've started hitting on the limitations of the way I do what I do..  One of them being I tend to have very flat colors in my images.. Which is fine, it's my taste.. But when I want to get away from that my own editing techniques get in my way..  I've seen great examples of brightly colored "paint with light" style techniques done entirely in photoshop.. But the how's and why's get pretty muddy..

Our own Ransom J of late has come upon a technique that produces some outrageously stylist, brightly colored stuff..  It's neat.. I wouldn't want every picture to look like that..  But.. It's new to me.. So I'm interested.

MB Photography wrote:
I am experimenting with a slightly different approach,  I take my original image, convert it to LAB mode and duplicate the lightness channel as a new channel.  I then revert back to RGB mode and copy the new channel as a new B&W layer set in luminosity mode.  I then add a new soft light layer (grouped with previous layer) and filled with 50% gray.  I can then dodge and burn in this new layer to manipulate contrast without affecting my colors too much.

I am hoping to see this thread develop.

Want to make sure I'm understanding this.. You're using the lightness layer as a mask on your D&B layer?  Did I get that right..?  If so I get what you're doing.. If not.. Ya lost me.

SmartAz Photography wrote:
Rather than dodge and burn in the traditional sense - with the dodge and burn tool, consider creating a new layer and set the blend mode to "overlay" and click the "Fill overlay with 50% neutral color (50% gray)."  From there, select your paint brush, set the color to black to burn and white to dodge.  To increase or decrease the effect, set the brush's opacity to whatever it needs to be.

By doing this I've noticed that my colors stay on track a lot better and I don't have crazy overlaps that I have to get rid of.

I have used this before it works well for color photos but i do love Dodge and Burn for B&W photos.

W.G. Rowland wrote:

Want to make sure I'm understanding this.. You're using the lightness layer as a mask on your D&B layer?  Did I get that right..?  If so I get what you're doing.. If not.. Ya lost me.

I'm dodging and burning the lightness layer  which is in turn set to luminosity mode over the original.  I'll add an image in a few minutes

SmartAz Photography wrote:
"Fill overlay with 50% neutral color (50% gray)."

What does this do that an empty layer doesn't do?

J O N A T H A N wrote:
Dodge and burn too much will altar colors so it has to be done carefully... burning will start to altar and even darken/saturate colors and cannot just go back a dodge over it because it wont like undo the burn it just dodges the burned and then will start getting ashy...

Been slowly trying the layers of black and white ... but havent done it on anything major yet...

I should just get a book to better my technique... pretty much self taught and have been doing fine just using 3 main tools but lately hasnt been enough for some things...

Dodge and burn is irrevocable to the layer you work on and therefore destructive in nature (I know, you can use undo or the history pallet, but it is still irrevocable and destructive non the less) You would be better off painting in a softlight layer with black or white and varying opacity for final effect.

MB Photography wrote:
I am experimenting with a slightly different approach,  I take my original image, convert it to LAB mode and duplicate the lightness channel as a new channel.  I then revert back to RGB mode and copy the new channel as a new B&W layer set in luminosity mode.  I then add a new soft light layer (grouped with previous layer) and filled with 50% gray.  I can then dodge and burn in this new layer to manipulate contrast without affecting my colors too much.

My layers look like this

I am hoping to see this thread develop.


[Edited for readability]

Try "command, option, shift, tilde" to load a selection of the luminance value of the file and "command, delete" with black as the background color to fill a new layer. It will save you some time.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

What does this do that an empty layer doesn't do?

Oddly enough, you don't see the 50% neutral color.  It's as if it's just a checkbox that you select.  I think it simply keeps your brush tones neutral. 

After you burn or dodge, you have to remember to switch out of that layer.  I often forget and then try to do some other adjustment -- that doesn't work -- until I go back to my original layer.

SmartAz Photography wrote:

Oddly enough, you don't see the 50% neutral color.  It's as if it's just a checkbox that you select.  I think it simply keeps your brush tones neutral. 

After you burn or dodge, you have to remember to switch out of that layer.  I often forget and then try to do some other adjustment -- that doesn't work -- until I go back to my original layer.

My point is that it doesn't do anything. I read an awful lot of how to books just to see if there is anything new to learn and they all have this same procedure. Filling with neutral gray does absolutely nothing that I can glean.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
My point is that it doesn't do anything. I read an awful lot of how to books just to see if there is anything new to learn and they all have this same procedure. Filling with neutral gray does absolutely nothing that I can glean.

would doing a level or curve adjustment on that layer be different with neutral gray as opposed to transparent... I guess I should just try it.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

What does this do that an empty layer doesn't do?

I think the overlay mode algorithm darkens parts of the image that are below 50% luminosity, lightens everything above 50% and doesn't do much at 50%.

Jeanloup wrote:
would doing a level or curve adjustment on that layer be different with neutral gray as opposed to transparent... I guess I should just try it.

We're talking about painting into a gray background not curving one.

Edit... That sounded mean spirited. I didn't want it to, it just happened. Didn't mean any offense.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

My point is that it doesn't do anything. ...

As it's supposed to. If you start with white (level 255) you can't make white more white. Same with black.

Just disregard this if I'm not understanding the discussion. Don't have the patience to read the whole thread.

Fotticelli wrote:

I think the overlay mode algorithm darkens parts of the image that are below 50% luminosity, lightens everything above 50% and doesn't do much at 50%.

Doesn't do anything at 50%.. This is true of many of the blending modes.. The point Bob is making is that if you use a blank layer (no info) vs using one that's 50% gray.. It's treated exactly the same.. Making the 50% gray part a pointless step.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
We're talking about painting into a gray background not curving one.

Edit... That sounded mean spirited. I didn't want it to, it just happened. Didn't mean any offense.

Understood, but after the painting you can adjust the contrast of the painting by applying a curve or level adjustment. I was just wondering if this would be different with tranparent vs. neutral grey in the painting layer.

Fotticelli wrote:

As it's supposed to. If you start with white (level 255) you can't make white more white. Same with black.

Just disregard this if I'm not understanding the discussion. Don't have the patience to read the whole thread.

My point is it's an unnecessary step, at least for painting black and white onto a softlight, hardlight or overlay layer.

Jeanloup wrote:

would doing a level or curve adjustment on that layer be different with neutral gray as opposed to transparent... I guess I should just try it.

It would be the same as changing opacity of the adjustment layer to 50%.

Fotticelli wrote:

It would be the same as changing opacity of the adjustment layer to 50%.

not with a curve adjustment... you could alter the mid tone to highlight and lock the shadow. Mind you much of this can be achieved with masking and using a brush at different opacities.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

My point is it's an unnecessary step, at least for painting black and white onto a softlight, hardlight or overlay layer.

Yeah, you are right. I just tried it. It doesn't make any difference if you are using a brush and painting on white or black to dodge or burn.

The 50% gray matters if you use dodge or burn tools though. Can't dodge white because it's as white as it gets.

Jeanloup wrote:
not with a curve adjustment... you could alter the mid tone to highlight and lock the shadow. Mind you much of this can be achieved with masking and using a brush at different opacities.

I just tried three things for the heck of it:

Curve adjustment layer in Overlay Mode at 50% opacity

Curve adjustment layer in Overlay Mode at 100% opacity with 50% gray mask

50% gray color layer with the same curve adjustment in Overlay Mode at 100% opacity.

All look the same to me.

I see your point though. You can adjust the burning and dodging with a curve.

I love Photoshop! You can adjust the adjustments to the adjustments.

Fotticelli wrote:
I just tried three things for the heck of it:

Curve adjustment layer in Overlay Mode at 50% opacity

Curve adjustment layer in Overlay Mode at 100% opacity with 50% gray mask

50% gray color layer with the same curve adjustment in Overlay Mode at 100% opacity.

All look the same to me.

I see your point though. You can adjust the burning and dodging with a curve.

I love Photoshop! You can adjust the adjustments to the adjustments.

I love this stuff too. It makes my brain ache in wonderful ways.

Heres a test I did.

Made the background layer a colour.
created a new transparent layer
painted a 50% black stripe on it
set it to softlight.
attached a curve layer, with the midtone pulled way down, to the softlight layer.

results... the curve layer did absolutely nothing.


I repeated the above but this time filling the softlight layer with neutral gray before painting the stripe. This time the curve layer changed the image. It darkened the whole picture including the stripe.


Sorry if this is OT, I'm done being myopic.

W.G. Rowland wrote:
What about using dodge and burn techniques to intentionally alter color?  What blend modes add saturation? 

I'm experimenting..  I'm not perfect at what I do by any means, but I've gotten to the point where I've started hitting on the limitations of the way I do what I do..  One of them being I tend to have very flat colors in my images.. Which is fine, it's my taste.. But when I want to get away from that my own editing techniques get in my way..  I've seen great examples of brightly colored "paint with light" style techniques done entirely in photoshop.. But the how's and why's get pretty muddy..

Our own Ransom J of late has come upon a technique that produces some outrageously stylist, brightly colored stuff..  It's neat.. I wouldn't want every picture to look like that..  But.. It's new to me.. So I'm interested.

I sometimes add a saturation layer that I mask to include only those areas that add the best impact to the photo.  Adding adjustment layersand masking are far more useful in Photoshop than dodging and burning.

MB Photography wrote:
I am experimenting with a slightly different approach,  I take my original image, convert it to LAB mode and duplicate the lightness channel as a new channel.  I then revert back to RGB mode and copy the new channel as a new B&W layer set in luminosity mode.  I then add a new soft light layer (grouped with previous layer) and filled with 50% gray.  I can then dodge and burn in this new layer to manipulate contrast without affecting my colors too much.

My layers look like this

I am hoping to see this thread develop.


[Edited for readability]

Now that's something I will have to start playing around with.

W.G. Rowland wrote:
Don't want to rerail my thread because it didn't have a major direction in mind and nice to see people actually discussing this stuff vs just dissing it..

But when we get worked out what works and doesn't with straight dodge and burn..

Do these techniques produce interesting and useful effects applied in other ways (for example) with other blending modes..

I'm hedging towards trying to figure out how to get some of those super-saturated color looks I'm seeing here and there.. (Yes, the much maligned Dave Hill is a good example).

You know what might be interesting... Who uses hard mix and linear burn and pin light and linear light and difference and exclusion and how do they use them. I have never found a reason to use pin light or hard mix in anything. I've use exclusion and difference to make masks.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:

You know what might be interesting... Who uses hard mix and linear burn and pin light and linear light and difference and exclusion and how do they use them. I have never found a reason to use pin light or hard mix in anything. I've use exclusion and difference to make masks.

That's what I'm getting at.. I've seen tutorials and suggestions of using color dodge and burn modes..  I've yet to get much success in my experiments, though..

Jeanloup wrote:
edit: never mind... didn't make sense as usual.

S'okay.. I have the book, too.. 

SmartAz Photography wrote:
Rather than dodge and burn in the traditional sense - with the dodge and burn tool, consider creating a new layer and set the blend mode to "overlay" and click the "Fill overlay with 50% neutral color (50% gray)."  From there, select your paint brush, set the color to black to burn and white to dodge.  To increase or decrease the effect, set the brush's opacity to whatever it needs to be.

By doing this I've noticed that my colors stay on track a lot better and I don't have crazy overlaps that I have to get rid of.

I use this technique only with soft light blend mode.

Bob Randall Photography wrote:
You know what might be interesting... Who uses hard mix and linear burn and pin light and linear light and difference and exclusion and how do they use them. I have never found a reason to use pin light or hard mix in anything. I've use exclusion and difference to make masks.

Linear Burn/Linear Light combined with a low opacity (15-20%) Photocopy layer can do some interesting effects to darker details or darker textures.  I've also used these at times when oversharpening with High Pass to get something a little more extreme to look at.

I've pretty frequently used the color selection tool in a field of leaves or flowers on some random midpoint, duplicated that later, applied a slight distortion or motion blur, then dropped it in as Pin light with a slight Hue shift to get something a little surreal without looking cartoony.

I haven't really found a good use for Exclusion or Difference though.  But I was playing around last night with some smoke effects and Difference made the smoke look more like flame.  It was fun to play with, but I doubt I would use it for much though.