(speaking foreign language)
- In this video I wanna show you a very important secret
about dodge and burn into Lightroom.
(light music)
(speaking foreign language)
So, dodge and burn is one of the key feature of Lightroom
and the ability to do local retouching,
but there is a way of doing it
that has been kept secret for so long.
Stay until the end because I'm gonna show you
how you can apply this on landscape but also on portrait.
All right so I wanna show you a few secrets
of the dodge and burn.
You know, over the last 15 years,
I think the most important thing I've learned
in photography retouching is dodge and burn.
If you stay until the end,
I'm gonna show you some really cool secrets.
So, this is a photo that I shot in Tuscany.
I love Tuscany,
because it's got this sort of like regular dodge and burn
because of the hills and how the wind
on the top of the hills make things a little bit brighter
compared to the bottom of the hill.
I love this photo.
So, I'm just gonna open up the shadows
and bring down the highlights.
That's what I usually do.
If you follow my YouTube channel,
you know I'm a big fan of that workflow.
I'm gonna hold down the option key
and I'm gonna find my black point.
Remember, black when you see
the yellow and green are 100% black.
By the way, if I'm going a little too fast,
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So, I'm gonna do the same thing with the white.
I'm gonna move here to the right.
I'm going to do my white point.
So, already we can see that this was a RAW file.
RAW files sometimes they almost look like black and white.
It's kinda crazy.
The white balance, this was an evening.
So evening I usually go to shade
to make it a bit warmer and maybe add a bit of magenta,
because I like that.
Add a bit of contrast and it's already looking pretty good,
but I wanna just add a little bit of dodge and burn.
So, the way I used to do it for many years
and I just take a brush.
I double click on effect to put everything down to zero.
I add a bit of exposure.
Now, make sure that your flow and density are not at 100,
because if you do that,
when you're gonna start brushing
it's gonna be very obvious where you brush
and it's not gonna be natural.
So, let me delete that, but check this out.
If now I go back in the 60's, now when I start brushing,
it's a lot more subtile, okay.
So the idea of dodge and burn
is you wanna add local contrast.
You look for areas which are bright
and you are making them a little bit brighter
and it's kinda cool.
It's cool and it really makes the photo pop.
I mean, the key is not to overdo it.
So, that's what I've been doing for years,
but I'll show you a really cool trick
that goes much faster and I have to be honest on this.
I saw somebody doing it on a YouTube video.
I forgot who it was.
I thought it was genius and I'm so sorry I don't remember
so I cannot shout out,
but if you are watching this
and you're like oh but this is me.
We invented this.
Well, credit goes to you 'cause I did not invent this.
So this is what the person did
and I thought it was so brilliant.
He took a brush, a big brush like this.
Oh, actually let me show you the difference.
So, I'm just gonna do command+z.
So you see I did my dodging.
Usually I make sure that here I don't go over 0.46
not 0.5 because it just looks too fake.
So, keeping it under .50 usually is good,
but sometimes you're like yeah
but do I need to dodge here.
Where do I dodge?
I'll show you a really cool trick.
I'm gonna create a virtual copy of this so that we can see
and I'm gonna give this a five star to this one,
to the virtual copy.
This one I'm gonna give it like a zero star, pressing zero.
Okay, it didn't work so right+click.
Why didn't it work?
Zero star, okay.
Okay, zero star and five star.
On this one, I'm just gonna erase what I did here.
Okay, so no dodging and I'm gonna take a brush
and I'm gonna put even the flow
and density a little higher on this one.
I'm gonna just brush everywhere.
Everywhere, not on the sky, but just on the grass.
Everywhere, and I'm done.
Beautiful dodging isn't it?
No, but here is the trick.
Range mask off.
If you go to luminence.
Now check this out.
If I move the range to the right,
only in certain spots is the white going to stay.
So you get a much, kind of the same results.
So this is with dodging by hand
and this is technique you get a more natural result
and it's really fast.
You can do the same thing with the burn brush.
So you click new, you go the opposite,
you make it darker, very strong
and you brush everywhere, boom.
You make everything dark like this
and then you go range mask off, luminence
and you lower this.
You can see that it all went up.
So, maybe here it's a little strong
so I can always back that down, the overall brush.
But what it does is it basically just keeps
the black only, the black parts.
Check this out.
Before the brush strokes, after the brush strokes.
I think it makes a huge difference.
So on this one, I don't recommend it to do on the sky.
On the sky, the only thing I wanna do
on the sky is I just wanna dodge it a little bit.
So I wanna create a new brush.
Double-click on effect,
just add a bit of exposure,
add a bit of magenta,
and I'm gonna make this a little bit brighter here,
just here where the trees are.
Then I'm gonna take a gradient and I'm gonna make
the top of the sky a bit darker.
So double-click on effect.
Double-click on effect puts everything down to zero.
Then exposure, maybe add a bit
of blue and (speaking foreign language) oops.
(speaking a foreign language)
I kind of like that.
I still think the sky's a little too bright.
Oh, I erased my gradient.
Ah, la, la, la, la, la, la.
Okay, yeah, I like a bit of drama in the sky.
Just a little, tiny bit of drama.
I like it.
Some people like the sky like this.
That is me, this is like Erik Almas sky, this is me.
If you know Erik Almas, I love his sky.
He's got like very sort of diffused kind of sky.
Let me reset this one so you can see the before.
So that's the before.
A very dull profile and that's where we are,
much more dramatic.
You know, and if you think it's too much,
you can always take the brush
and take the different values there
and just lower that value and take the other value.
Oh, this one was actually at zero,
so let me do it a little bit.
Okay, and yeah.
It's just a really cool way.
Let me show you on another example.
So, this is like a complete overexposed photo
that I did of the same scene,
but it turned out to be one
of my most liked photos on Instagram
and the way I did it is while I brought down
the highlights, we start seeing some kind of sky there.
I opened the shadows, not too much
and then I did my black point and my white point.
Like this.
Then I did a bit of a gradient on the sky like this.
Double-click on effect.
I lower the sky a little bit here.
Maybe add a bit of blue, all right.
Then let's do the same tricks.
So we take a brush, double-click here on effect.
All right, and I'm just gonna brush here
with some really white value.
Let's go crazy, flow and density full blast.
Let's brush everywhere here.
We make it bright, we make it bright
and then we go to luminance range
and then we bring this down so
that it only effects the very bright areas.
Okay, let's do the same thing new
and then this time we take a dark brush.
Same thing, we're gonna brush everywhere.
Ooh, make everything bright, everything dark
and then luminance and we go the opposite.
We just go this way this time, okay.
You see?
You can see here that's the before and after the brush.
You see just makes the bottom of the photo pop a lot.
Okay, I think now that I've made it pop,
I wanna make it much more warm.
So I'm gonna add, yeah,
'cause it was really sunny that day
and I think what I ended up doing
is making another gradient.
I ended up making the top of the photo really dark.
That's what I did.
It's not very natural,
but it was one of my most liked photos last year.
So, something like this.
So, let's see here.
We're gonna create a virtual copy.
So you can see the before.
Okay, that's the before.
That's the after.
I just love the clouds how they are.
I think it's a powerful composition
and it even works on portrait.
So, this is a portrait I took a while ago.
It's already retouched kind of thing, but check this out.
If I take a brush and then I'm gonna make this brighter.
Then so I'm just gonna brush here all over the body
and then I go to range mask off, luminance
and I go to the right.
You see, I like what it does.
It's maybe a little too much.
You can back it down here a little bit.
But check this out.
That's just with the dodging.
It took everything which is kinda bright
and made it kinda brighter.
'Cause I find it so hard to dodge and burn a face
and with this technique, you can do it.
So new, now I'm gonna go black
and I'm just gonna put black everywhere.
Then I'm going to my range mask off.
It's like dodge and burn for lazy people like me.
Check this out.
Look how golden the face and how before and after.
Look how really powerful that is.
Guys, don't forget if you like this,
give me a little like.
In case you missed it,
last week I did a video of my best secret
to do night photography.
Check it out.
It's starting now.