What is dodge and burn? It´s nothing secret these days. It´s a technique that allows us to lighten and darken specific areas to reach a more balanced or more expressive look of light and shadow transitions in the picture. It can be applied to a skin, hair, clothes but even products, landscape, products or architecture. Dodge and burn is universal technique to meet the standarts of subjective beauty which may not be always beautifiyng people.
Before I start about D&B here you can read a Studio lighting tutorial for this type of light
Myth one - There is only one way to do it and that is dodge and burn tool
No it´s not. There are several ways to do it. Regular dodge and burn tools are limited. For example I use them just to improve masks. It do not allows me to keep once highlighted and darkened areas and I can´t go back as easily as when using layer masks. There are several methods. For example using a neutral gray layer or using adjustment layers (curves, levels, exposure, whatever works for you). I personally prefer using curves for dodge and burn because once you paint with light to a mask, you can copy mask later and use it to a necessary color corrections.
Myth two - When it comes to skin it´s better to use filters than dodge and burn, it´s faster
I found this by myself, using a filters degrades the texture and in the end when it comes to judging it makes the difference between natural and weeping skin. I don´t mind using filters wisely but after two years tweaking and testing various filters I ended up with regular dodge and burn and I am way more satisfied with the results. Filters are here for rushed employees of graphic studios that have to be superquick. These days I would rather refuse a job if I can´t do it right. Your work is your business card.
Myth three - The more I dodge and burn the skin, the better result is
Not really. I tended to concentrate on too small details in the beginning and usually ended up with not really natural flat result. I can only advice to follow the natural shadows and curves of the face. Start with a bigger troubles and slowly go to the details. This way you´ll avoid being too stucked on a one place. Zoom in and out, change the "retouched" area. But the is also the other thing, old male would look weird if you remove all his wrinkles so use your brain to find out what image really needs and what kills the image.
Myth four - There must be some way to do this faster
Practice will make your work more effective. There are some tricks to get rid of some hars transitions - like inverted manual high pass, but even those have to be used carefully instead you´ll ruin the image.
Myth five - I have to remove every imperfection
No, you don´t have to. It´s you who decides how much of "imperfection" to keep to make an illusion of realism. Yeah, it´s fake, of course, but we cheat the way it looks natural. So as long it works for you, keep these small things like freckles, little shadow underneath the eye and do not remove all natural shadows of lashes, hairs and so. Sure, there are many styles of retouching so you can do heavily retouched Chanel or Dior look or want the more natural result. It pretty much depends on a style you want to reach.
Myth six - Once I start dodging and burning, I can do everything with light so my photo can suck
This is the worst myth I met with. It´s pretty common that photographer gives retoucher that bad results so I wonder why don´t they refuse a job. Makeup is just only thing that usually sucks. I highly reccomend anyone, do your job with photography as best you can because that really saves the time. Once you pay retoucher per hour, you will heavily regret that you didn´t spend 15 more minutes with light setup. Even the best retoucher can´t do the magic the light can do.
Myth seven - Painting a light allows me to recreate all shadows and highlights
That´s only partially true. I never saw anyone who would do as natural light as nature does it itself. It´s way easier to shoot image and enhance it than shoot image, recreate it and enhance it later. And I don´t speak about limits we meet once we are out of the RAW editor. You can use D&B to imitate natural light but it´s not easy and it do not work always with any resource.
Myth eight - Products and landscaped do not need to be dodged and burned
Of course they do. I assume the best example is a glass or jewellery product photography. Dodge and burn allows you to bring up the highligts and strike a light into a place where light is not enough expressive. I tend to lighten up every cut till I get the desired result.
Myth nine - I have to dodge and burn every image I do
Dodge and burn is a great tool but not every image needs it. Stay down to earth, journalism is not a beauty or fashion shot and the better light is (and the better photoshoot setup and direction are), the less of editing you´ll need in general. Some images do not need to be even touched with healing brush or any other tool. It all depends on an image itself and desired style.
Myth ten - Dodge and burn only smooths
You can use it for illusory sharpening, adding a fake highlights or shadows to boost a contrast or even cheat with missing texture in eyes or so. There are so many ways to use D&B and it´s just upon your own creativity to find more ways to use it.
Next time I will explain some ways to do dodge and burn and some pros and cons of these methods.
Lucie Kout
