Dodging and burning are techniques borrowed from the wet darkroom, where you can use your hands or various instruments to block light from specific areas of an image. The longer the light from the enlarger strikes any given area, the darker that area will be. Blocking light to small areas during exposure is referred to as dodging and results in the blocked areas being lighter in a print than they otherwise would have been. Burning is the opposite: blocking light from most of the image so you can concentrate light for a portion of the exposure on one particular area, darkening that area of the print.

In Photoshop you can produce similar effects. In fact, Photoshop includes Dodge and Burn tools on the Tools panel, but we don’t recommend using them because you must apply them directly to an image layer, and they don’t offer the flexibility of the method we’ll present here.

The method we recommend for dodging and burning uses one layer for dodging and another for burning, and takes advantage of layer masks and layer blending modes. Blending modes are different ways of combining layers. So far all the layers we’ve worked with in the examples have been in Normal mode, but Photoshop contains numerous algorithms for different ways to combine two layers. You can combine layers so that the tonal values are added together or multiplied, or the darker value used, or the lighter values, and so on. You don’t have to become an expert on each of the algorithms; we’ll use just two of them here: Screen and Multiply.

Note: We prefer this method to the older Overlay method because it’s more forgiving and easier to use.

Although setting up the dodging and burning requires a lot of steps, the procedure is easy and can be automated by creating an action.

To set up layers to use for dodging and burning, do the following:

1. Create a new Levels adjustment layer, but do not make any changes; just click OK. This creates an adjustment layer in the Layers panel even though you aren’t making any changes with it yet.
2. Double-click directly on the name of the layer (Levels1), and change it to Dodge.
3. In the Blending Modes drop-down menu on the Layers panel, choose Screen. The entire image will become one full stop lighter, which in most images means that it will instantly be overexposed. Don’t worry we’re not going to leave it that way for long!
4. In the menu bar, choose Edit > Fill > Use Black, and click OK. The layer mask should now be black, and your image should look the way it did before we began setting up for dodging and burning.
5. Create another Levels adjustment just as you did in Step 1, and name it Burn.
6. Change the blending mode of this layer to Multiply.
7. In the menu bar, choose Edit > Fill > Use Black, and click OK.
8. Select the Brush tool by selecting it on the Tools panel or by pressing B on your keyboard. Be sure to use a soft-edged brush, as shown below.
   
   

   Use a soft-edged brush when dodging and burning your image with this method.

   
   
9. Set the opacity of the brush to 15%, although you may want to adjust this as you proceed since it controls the strength of the dodging and burning.
   Note: It’s important to set the brush to the Normal blending mode in the tool Options bar, while the layer itself is set to Multiply or Screen in the Layers panel.
   Note: If you’re using a tablet, you can also use pen pressure of the stylus to determine the Opacity setting when dodging and burning with this method.
10. Press D to set the colors on the color boxes in the Tools panel to their default values of black foreground and white background. Note that you can switch the foreground and background colors by pressing X as you’re working, allowing you to easily switch between black and white.
    Now you’re ready to apply selective lightening and darkening to the image

With your new layers and the Brush tool properly configured, you’re ready to start painting with light. Paint with white using the brush at a reduced opacity on the appropriate layer to lighten or darken your image. Although it appears that you’re painting directly on your image, you’re actually painting on the layer mask. Because you’re painting at a reduced opacity, the result is relatively modest. If necessary, you can paint over areas multiple times to build up an effect. The best effect is usually subtle. When people look at the final image, they shouldn’t get the impression that you were using dodging and burning techniques. However, when you toggle the visibility of the dodge and burn layer off and on, you’ll see a difference between the images.

It’s important to understand the behavior of the Brush tool when you’re working at a reduced opacity for this technique. As long as you hold down the mouse button, the effect does not accumulate no matter how many times the mouse passes over a particular area. However, if you release the mouse and start painting again, the effect is uneven if you partially overlap areas you’ve previously painted. Therefore, it’s important that you click and hold the mouse button while painting until you’ve covered the entire area you want to adjust. Then release the mouse and start painting again in additional areas you’d like to change.

Dodging and burning are two of our favorite techniques in Photoshop. We appreciate the capability to paint with light, bringing out details in various areas of the image or simply emphasizing particular features (see below).

Dodging and burning allow you to enhance detail or add drama to various areas of your image with tremendous flexibility, producing an image that has been adjusted in a subtle way but with a big difference in the final result. Photo by Ellen Anon.

Of course, now and then you may be less than satisfied with an adjustment you’ve made when using this technique. Fortunately, because you apply it using a layer mask, it’s easy to fix mistakes even if it’s too late to simply undo a step on the History panel.

There are two basic ways to correct your mistakes. If you were painting with white as your foreground color, make black the foreground color and set the opacity to 100%. Paint over the problematic area, and begin again.

Alternatively, if you are dissatisfied with all the dodging or burning you did, return to Edit > Fill > Use Black, and reset the layer mask to black. Then you can start over.