How to dodge and burn like a pro in Adobe CC – N-Photo 161 video tutorial

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The Dodge and Burn tools are ideal for selective lightening and darkening in Photoshop CC. There are lots of other tools that do a similar job, but there’s something about these two options that will keep you coming back to them, time and time again! 

Perhaps it’s the darkroom connection. In the darkroom, areas of a print would be ‘dodged’ by shading some of the light from the enlarger bulb. A small disc on a piece of wire would often be used, an implement echoed in the Photoshop Dodge tool icon. By contrast, parts could be ‘burned’ by focusing extra light from the enlarger onto specific areas, resulting in darker tones. An ‘OK’ hand shape could be used for this, the hole between thumb and finger channelling a thin sliver of light onto the print, hence the hand-shaped icon for Photoshop’s Burn tool.

Of course, all this had to be done in the dark without any feedback until the print was developed. It took patience, tremendous skill and a good deal of trial and error to get right. Thankfully, it’s much easier now. But there’s still great skill in knowing where to dodge or burn, and how far to push it if you’re going to achieve your best results.

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James Paterson

The lead technique writer on Digital Camera MagazinePhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine and N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine, James is a fantastic general practice photographer with an enviable array of skills across every genre of photography. 

Whether it's flash photography techniques like stroboscopic portraits, astrophotography projects like photographing the Northern Lights, or turning sound into art by making paint dance on a set of speakers, James' tutorials and projects are as creative as they are enjoyable. 

He's also a wizard at the dark arts of Photoshop, Lightroom and Affinity Photo, and is capable of some genuine black magic in the digital darkroom, making him one of the leading authorities on photo editing software and techniques.