How to Dodge and Burn in Photoshop Tutorial to Add Depth and Dimension
Hey, it's Colin Smith here and welcome to this week's episode.
This week I'm going to show you how to use Dodging and Burning to add depth and dimension
to objects.
All right, I just finished recording a two and a half hour premium tutorial on dodging
and burning, so I thought, why not for this week's episode, why not just do something
on dodging and burning, and show you the basics, since it's kind of fresh in my mind.
So what we're going to do is take a photograph and I'm going to show you how to use dodging
and burning, non-destructively, to bring back details in a photograph.
But more importantly than that, I'm going to show you how dodging and burning, like
shadows and highlights, to add dimension and add shading, so your photographs don't look
so flat.
So we're going to take a photograph that was shot in the middle of the day, a terrible
time to shoot.
Everything is very flat and just kind of dead, and then, we're going to add shadows; we're
going to add highlights to bring out the curvature and the shape of the objects.
Now this works for anything.
We're going to use this ship in the example, but this will work for people.
It will work for landscapes.
It will work for all kinds of different things, and if you want to see that, check out that
premium tutorial that I just did.
All right, let's have a look at non-destructive dodging and burning.
I actually just finished doing a two and a half training title which covers everything,
from landscape to people, to bodies, faces, all that stuff.
I'll put a link in there and you can check that out.
That's more of a comprehensive video, but what I'm going to show you here is just kind
of the basics of adding some three dimensional depth by using dodging and burning here inside
of Photoshop.
So what I've got as I'm going to create a new layer, but I'm going to hold down the
Option key and click on the New Layer icon, and this gives me a new layer with an option.
And what I'm going to do with the Option is I'm going to change it to Overlay Mode.
Now, when I do that, this option comes here, available for 50% gray, so I'm going to turn
that on and click OK, and that's giving me my first dodging and burning layer.
So I'm actually going to duplicate this and I'm going to call this bottom one "big," and
then, I'm going to call this one "detail."
And, you know, I have different ways of working, but for this one, I'm just going to do a real
basic kind of a workflow.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to lighten and darken different parts of this
photograph to bring out a 3-dimensional depth, so what I'm going to do with the big is I'm
going to do the overall kind of adjustments just to kind of set the mood for this image
here, and then, for the detail, I'm going to go in and add some depth to certain areas
and just kind of paint those.
I'm going to do this pretty quickly that I think you're going to get a good gist of how
this works because I don't want to spend hours painting this one.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start by hitting the D key to reset the foreground
and background colors, and I want a black color there, and I'm going to grab the Brush
Tool, so B will get you to the Brush Tool there.
And then, what I'm going to do--let me just get that centered--is I want to set this to
a 30% opacity.
You can do that by just hitting the 3.
If you're working with a mouse, maybe you'll drop it down to 20, and I'm going to turn
pressure sensitivity on for Opacity with my pen.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with a big brush and I said 20, you may do
it 15 with a mouse, and that just really depends.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to kind of set some shadows around the edges here
because the dark areas tend to draw your eye in, so I'm just kind of framing, almost adding
a vignette kind of an effect.
And I'm just going to kind of gently go over this whole thing, just kind of darkening down
these different areas.
And let's just go across there and I'm going to try a little bit more in the sky.
It looks like we don't have a ton of detail on the sky there.
Unfortunately, I kind of blew out those clouds a little bit, but let's see if we can get
something back by dodging and burning in there.
And the other thing you can do is, if you feel like you really want to try and recover
this, just go on to here, and what we're going to do is go Filter, and we're going to the
Camera Raw Filter.
And let's open this in Camera Raw real quick, and then, we're going to bring back the highlights.
Okay, so we're able to recover a little bit of detail there.
That's not bad, it's all the way up.
And let's _[00:04:06] also about the shadow.
So what I'm doing is I'm reducing contrast and I'm going to click OK, and I like that
when I'm dodging and burning because, now, I can start to add my contrast here.
See, I can paint in this contrast, so a low contrast image is great to work with, so I'm
just kind of darken up around the edges here a little bit, maybe, undo that, make the brush
a little bit bigger.
There we go.
And I'm just kind of gently going over the area, kind of creating this, so I want the
light to come down here.
This is where I want the eye to be led, so I'm going to hit the X key, which means I'm
going to paint with white now, and I'm just going to gently just paint on white just up
there, just kind of toning this a little bit.
There we go, so almost looks like a flood light is just kind of going here.
It's almost like I've lit this scene.
Now this is why I'm doing the dodging and burning on the same layer.
You might be wondering why I'm not dodging on one layer and burning on another, and let
me just go to the Normal Mode and you can see what's happening here.
The reason for this is if I did this and I made it very, very dark on one layer--let
me hit the X key, I've just kind of darkened those edges a little bit--and I do this and
then I try to, you know, fix it by dodging it or lightening it on another layer.
And you're putting these different grays, so it could be really hard, but when I'm doing
the overall thing, and we go back to Overlay Mode, then it's very easy for me to lighten
or darken to see if it feels like, "Wow, it's just a little dark there."
I can actually just go here and just gently paint with the white.
Now, what it does is it just changed that shade of gray for me, and that just kind of
work.
So this overall dodging and burning just kind of set the mood and we can look at this before
and after.
You can kind of see that I'm bringing the eye into this area, because the eye tends
to look at the brighter areas, not the dark areas.
All right, let's go to the detail.
Now I'll hit Command J, sometimes I split the detail, and, maybe, I'll do detail light
and I'll do detail dark.
And the reason I'll do this is because that way, if I feel I got a little heavy on the
shadows, I can adjust it independently than I can on the highlights, just like there.
If I feel like there's just a little too much, I can just go here and just wind back the
Opacity a little bit.
See that?
You can just kind of dial it in.
And that's another reason why I do the details separately, so let's just do the darks.
And what I'm doing is I'm just going to add some shadow.
So, right now, I'm just thinking about where's the light coming from, you know, there's not
a lot of light, really, that's really been cast in here, so, you know, in this case,
when I'm not looking at strong shadow, I'm kind of seeing shadows that looks like the
lights kind of coming straight down this way because it's a very, you know, middle of the
day thing.
I'm actually going to enhance this a little bit and start to add a little bit of drama
myself, by even adding some of this light in here.
So I'm going to go for shadows on this side, so I'm going to go darker on that side, and,
gently, just kind of blend that in.
And so, what I'm doing is I'm going at a time of the day where it's very dark.
I mean, I'm sorry, it's not very dark.
It's just very bright and everything is kind of blown out, so it's a lacking in that some
of that contrast and detail, and I'm going to go here just to kind of take these areas
that are blown out.
So, I'm actually going to add back in some of this detail that we're losing here, just
by this time of the day.
It's a boring time of the day to shoot, but we can make up for it.
We're going to add some drama here, so let's get some shadow under here, and we're going
to shadow this side, so we're actually going to make it look like more like the lights
coming from the left hand side; same in here, let's give it a little shadow in here.
And, notice, as I'm painting in there, it's giving it a little depth, and that's what
we're looking for.
We're looking for this 3-dimensional depth, and I'm just going to go there and leave it
there, and, maybe, a little bit on this side.
We could kind of drop it down, a little shadow here, and just kind of drop some of these
into shadow.
And I'll grab this dunce, let me just drop that down pretty small brush, and I'm using
the left and the right bracket keys to make the brush smaller and larger.
And I'm just kind of darkening down this side a little bit, adding a little shadow there,
just kind of faking a little bit.
I'm actually relighting the scene, so to speak.
And, once again, if you want a lot more detail about this, you know, I spent two and a half
hours creating a premium video, and feel free to check that out if you like.
I'll put a link to the trailer as well so that you could check that out.
All right, so what I'm doing is I'm adding the shadows on this side, here, and see how
it's just kind of starting to give a little depth.
You won't even realize how much depth I'm giving this until I come back in a little
bit and I'm going to do some before and after simulation.
You'll be quite surprised with what's happening.
I'm darkening these down, adding a little more detail.
So something like this could be, you know, quite difficult to do sometimes, because you're
trying to figure out where the lights and the shadows should be.
Let me make that a little smaller.
What we're literally doing is we're literally painting this in.
So just think of it as the light is coming from this side is coming down, so it's coming
from the left, I'd say 45 degrees is what we're thinking of, so all the front surface
is going to be hit with light, and in the surfaces that are sheltered are the ones that
are going to be in shadows, so that's why I'm adding some of those shadows in there.
And I'm kind of faking it in a certain way and I'm actually relighting this scene, but
it's adding more contrast, it's adding more drama.
It's taking what would otherwise be a very flat scene, and it's adding depth.
And these are quite flat surfaces, so it's a little hard for some of these, you know,
you work on round surfaces, and you could really make some of those path.
And, also, you know, you could get into little details like here.
You could get as detailed as you wanted, you know, I'm not going to get super detailed
in this because I want you guys to get the gist of it on this tutorial here, and you
could kind of see what we got there, so looking good.
All right, it's darkened in here because I'm figuring out a little shadow can go in there.
And one of the other things you can do with this tool is you can use it to take a very
overly complex image, and you can start to simplify it as well.
So when you've got a lot going on, you can really cut through a lot of the confusion
by using this dodging and burning like you can just like turn that back a little bit,
and we're just simplifying, and really guiding the eye into the area of the photo that matters.
So let me go underneath the clouds, sometimes I'll do this, I'll paint the bottom of the
clouds here just to kind of add a little more shadow under there, a little more drama, taking
care not to go to the top part of the cloud, just the bottom.
And it's not too hard because when you're working in this Overlay Mode, a pure white--look
at this--with black, you're not going to do anything to it.
So you don't really have to worry, but what we're trying to do is just vary the pressure
a little bit more towards the bottom and see how it tends to give us more depth, so it's
not looking flat anymore, and that's the whole point of what we're trying to do here is to
get depth.
We don't want it to look flat.
We want this to kind of pop, to have some 3-dimensional contrast.
All right, so let's have a look; you'll be surprised.
Here we go, detail before, and after.
You can see what we've done there.
It's really starting to add some things, and when I first turned it on and off, and you
look at it, it goes "Whoa."
It could look a little fake, but, then, just turn your eye away and then look again, and
then, you're going to be like, "Wow," because remember, your viewers are not looking at
the before image there, and they're looking at the after image, so they won't see what
it looks like before.
So I'm just going in here, just adding a little bit of detail in some of these cracks.
I'm just painting in there.
And you can get in really close if you want, which, you know, in a situation like that,
I was totally off there.
So you can just kind of get in there and, you know, brush in here as close and detailed
as you want, like right now, I'm just doing it kind of big and loose.
That kind of gives a little bit more of a _[00:11:45] feel.
If you go in and paint, you know, at 100%, you're going into all the super details that
would definitely look a lot more realistic and less painting, but I kind of like this
painting look a little bit.
So there's a bit of a curve there, so I know that that's going to pick up a little shadow
on the Curves side.
Remember, all the ones that are not facing the sun are going to pick up shadow--darken
those up.
See how they were flat before and now it's adding dimension.
So, all right, so let me do a little bit more on the top there, just kind of taking some
of that glare off, and let's look in here, smaller brush, I'm going to go super small
here, and just kind of paint some shadow in there, look at that, and just in there; just
adding a little more shadow.
All right, almost done.
All right, so what we're going to do after this though, is we're actually going to jump
in, and then, I'm going to add the highlights.
The highlights will be very quick.
So what I'm going to do is actually just hit the X key and now I'm going to the white brush,
and I'm going to go up to the Detail layer on the alpha light, and then, I'm just going
to paint some highlights in here gently.
And this is really going to make a big difference.
The highlights, actually, in a lot of ways, make more difference than the shadows, but
I like to set the shadows first to set that foundation.
So let's just go up here and we're just going to paint up on the side there.
We go, look at that, see how those highlights just really make this pop.
I'm just going in, just on the edges of the guns here.
There we go.
And this can just really give it an incredible amount of life, and I'm just going to go at
the very top part there, so it's just kind of implied that that light is kind of more
on the top, see that?
And see how it's adding that dimension, all that depth that was getting lost before?
On this side here, we want this to be brighter than the other side, because this side is
facing directly into the light, so it really would brighten that up and same with those
upward pointing surfaces there.
Some of those can get a little bit more, outside of the dish, and the top there, definitely.
All right, let's go in the other side of these canisters.
Let's light these up a little bit.
Let's do this one here, the side facing the light, and, see, by increasing that light,
it's also increasing that contrast and that dimension, and just a little bit on top here.
And let's do this side here which will be facing the light would be possibly picking
up a little bit of light.
And this is an area here where we could do some dodging and burning to really start,
maybe, use a harder edge brush, and you could use this to separate the background.
We're not going to worry about it too much here, but see how you could really separate
this from the wood.
And that's another thing that you want to do with this kind of dodging and burning there.
Just use it to separate different parts of the photograph and see how that really pops
now, compared to how it did before.
And let's just give it a, you know, couple of more little things, and then, we're going
to finish this up; just a little bit on that side there.
That's kind of very saturated.
I don't like that being so saturated.
What it could do is get back to here and grab the Sponge Tool, so if we look under here,
a dodge, burn, and sponge.
Notice I'm not using the dodge and burn tools by the way.
I'm painting here because I prefer these.
I'm just using the brushes.
But what I'm going to do with the sponge is I want to desaturate.
I'm going to turn my flow down very low, like about 11% and see how that looks.
I'm just going to go gentle.
There we go.
What I'm trying to do is just desaturate it a little bit because it's just too bright,
too colorful.
And I just feel like it was just looking artificial and just distracting a little bit from the
overall image.
If you look at the detail there, I'd gotten too close to the edge there, so if I want
to fix something, by the way, what I do is go to a 50% gray, so I just go to Brightness
and I change that to 50%.
That will give me a pure 50% gray.
I go up to 100% with a brush, of course.
Let me go up to 100% with that brush.
And at 50% gray, and if I paint on it, the 50% gray will actually erase the strokes and
just go back to how it was, see that?
So if you want to undo something, 50% gray on any of these layers will actually almost
work like an eraser, so there's just a little extra tip for you.
All right, so we've kind of done a little bit of work there, and let's have a look,
just very quickly, if we look at this, here's our before image and here's our after image,
so you can see, you know, it's dramatically different just by doing this basid dodging
and burning, so let me just show you, first, well, here's our overall dodging and burning,
and here's our detail.
Let me show you the detail by itself, so there's the highlights by themselves, shadows by themselves,
and let's do the overall with the shadows, and our overall with the highlights.
So there we go, so you can feel free to adjust any of these with the Opacity if you want
to reduce the effects of those, but that's a basic of dodging and burning.
So thanks for watching, I hope you learned a little bit about dodging and burning here.
For more information, check out the premium training we've got on that.
And don't forget, hit that Subscribe button, subscribe to us, and then, you'll get a new
episode, at least once a week.
I'm thinking of even adding a few extras.
And hit that Like button, and don't forget, add a comment, let's get some discussion going.
I'm getting very close to doing my first Q and A session, so I'm going to grab questions
and answers from the comments, and we're going to be doing that, maybe, in the week or so.
So if I do that, I'll call your name out on the episode, and, also, maybe I'll give away
a few prizes.
We'll see.
So, anyway, thanks for watching.
Until next time, I'll see you at the CAFE.