dstalnaker Loc: Round Rock, Tx

Basically, I know absolutely nothing about post processing photos other than cropping. I have seen mentioned 'burning' and 'dodging' being done in the post processing of pictures and would like to know what this is, what is the end result in the pictures so affected.

O.K. So I admit that I love taking pictures but know nothing about processing them once they are taken. I just use what the camera was able to capture.

Dee Dee

Allen Hirsch Loc: Oakland, CA

Burning is darkening an area.

Dodging is lightening an area.

These terms come from the era of darkroom photography.

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

Here are some videos on it - sometimes seeing is easier than reading ;)

http://tv.adobe.com/videos/dodge-and-burn/

dstalnaker Loc: Round Rock, Tx

Thanks
Allen and Shellback. I appreciate the info.
Dee Dee

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

If you never spent any time developing and printing film, it may be a hard concept to grasp.

dstalnaker Loc: Round Rock, Tx

Appreciate the sentiment MT but I think I have it now.
Dee Dee

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Question: "What is Burning and/or Dodging when applied to photography?"

In the context of UHH it frequently relates to making negative comments about users of certain brands of camera equipment, and then getting out of the way as fast as possible!

Other than that, learning a little about how Ansel Adams created his work could be informative! :-D

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

DeeDee - burning applies to darkening a part of the image, dodging lightens it. Back in the wet-darkroom days, when processing a negative, dark areas in the print were "clearer" or more transparent on the negative, and light areas in the print were dark on the negative. If you wanted to darken unusually bright highlights, you would use a mask, usually a piece of cardboard with a hole in it cut to the shape of the area you wanted to darken, and hold it over the image projected on the print paper. You would effectively "hold back" exposure from the rest of the image, and expose the area under the hole for longer exposure, making it darker. Vice versa for dodging.

Photoshop has a dodge and burn tool. Better yet, if you google for non-destructive dodge and burn you will see a way to apply this darkening and lightening on a separate layer without permanently affecting the base image.

When applied to larger areas, it can expand the dynamic range of the image, making the highlights darker and the shadow areas lighter. When applied at the pixel level, you can darken a whitehead on a person's face, or lighten a freckle or a wrinkle.

PHIL BITTLE Loc: CALIFORNIA

Just as an aside ... many people, usually beginners, think photography is mainly camera, lenses, which way to point it, etc. Don't be misled. That's hardware stuff.

The real science and art of photography begins BEFORE and AFTER the photograph is taken. The design of the photograph, and the lighting, composition, angle, etc., the mental image of what you want the photograph to look like framed and on the wall. That's the BEFORE.

The AFTER is the processing (chemistry, film, paper, developing) and laboratory techniques that will produce a print that looks exactly like what you imagined before the photograph was even taken.

Digital has some wonderful elements to it, but you can't learn the art and science of photography that way ... you just learn how to work a digital camera. The science of photography can only be learned the hard way ... as someone called it, "wet photography". For example, one doesn't need color film or color paper to take a beautiful color photograph. Or you can take a beautiful color photograph using B & W film and printing it on color paper.

To give you a simple project to work on. Take a B & W negative of a grayscale, process the negative and have your print look like the original grayscale.

Regards - Phil Bittle

drmarty Loc: Pine City, NY

:thumbdown: :thumbup: :thumbdown:

drmarty Loc: Pine City, NY

Oops! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

:thumbup: :thumbup:

Excellently presented!

rjriggins11 Loc: Colorado Springs, CO

Burning and dodging are old school darkroom techniques. Burning is when you shadow everything except the object you want exposed more under an enlarger lamp. Dodging is just the opposite. You use a spoon shaped mask to shadow the parts you don't want over-exposed.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Just a historical (or hysterical?) aside, the icons that seem to be universally used by most post-processing programs are a hand with thumb and forefinger touching, and what looks like a lollipop. These represent the actual tools that Old Wet Darkroom Guys used most.

The lollipop was a "dodge" tool, used to lighten an area on a print when using an enlarger to project a negative to an easel on the baseboard. The tool looked exactly like a lollipop, a circle on a wand. I made my own in several sizes, using black construction paper and unbent paper clips with a little tape. I had one that was only about 1/8" on a piece of piano wire, and one that was almost 2" across. The idea was to deliberately cast a shadow on the paper on the easel in an area where there was little density, but still visible detail in the negative. The tool had to be kept moving to avoid a sharp edge, and I developed the skill of keeping the wand moving as well, in an arc, so as to prevent the wand casting a visible or (worse) sharp shadow. We called it "dodging" or sometimes "dodging back" a shadow.

The little hand icon making a kind of circle represents the best quick-and-dirty "burn" tool most darkroom workers preferred. Sometimes we would cut elaborate masks from black construction paper, but usually if there was an area of great density that still had detail, we would "burn it in" by making a circle or other shape with one or both hands. Once again, it was important to learn the trick of keeping the hands moving slightly to avoid getting a dark ring. It required practice, but those of us who worked the darkroom daily got so we didn't think about it. We also learned to judge whether we'd got it right (in black and white anyway) by viewing the print still in the fixer bath with a white light suspended over the tray. Dodging and burning were things you never wanted to be visible to the viewer. If you could see that it had been done, it had been done badly.

The tools we have now in Photoshop or other programs still do the exact same thing: darken or lighten parts of the image selectively. Done correctly, you should never be able to see that it has been done.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

As an escapee from B&W film(wet work), I still maintain that the best way to learn about the basics of photography is with a fully manual film camera and time in the darkroom. There is just no substitute for this experience. I will serve any beginner for a lifetime.