Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Dodging and Burning

Like Unsharp Mask, dodging and burning are old darkroom techniques used to enhance photos and emphasize particular areas. Dodging lightens and brings out hidden details in the range you specify (midtones, shadows, or highlights), and burning darkens and brings out details in a given range. Both tools live with the Sponge tool in the Tools panel.

You may think that, given the Shadows/Highlights command, you don't need these tools. But they still serve a useful purpose because they let you make selective changes, rather than affecting the whole image or requiring tedious selections the way Shadows/Highlights does. When you dodge or burn, you just paint your changes. Figure 12-13 shows an example of when you might need to work on a particular area. Of course, you can also make a selection and then use Shadows/Highlights just on that, which you may want to try as well as dodging and burning.

Figure 12-13. Although the overall shadow/highlight balance of this photo is about right, the detail in the face of this little concertgoer is obscured by backlighting and by her father's shadow. Careful dodging and burning can really help with these problems, as you can see in Figure 12-14.

Skillful use of dodging and burning can greatly improve your photos, although it helps to have an artistic eye to spot what to emphasize and what to downplay. Use these tools along with the black-and-white ...