The Photoshop® CS Book for Digital Photographers

Dodging and Burning Done Right

If you’ve ever used Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools, you already know how lame they are. That’s why the pros choose this method instead—it gives them a level of control that the Dodge and Burn tools just don’t offer, and best of all, it doesn’t “bruise the pixels.” (That’s Photoshop-speak for “it doesn’t mess up your original image data while you’re editing.”)

Step One.	In this tutorial, we’re going to dodge areas of this temple to add some highlights, and then we’re going to burn in the water and sky a bit to darken some of those areas. Start by opening the photo you want to dodge and burn. © BRAND X PICTURES [View full size image]
Step Two.	Go to the Layers palette, and from the pop-down menu, choose New Layer. ...