John Shaw Nature & Digital Photography Workshops Click here for locations and dates
				Mexico's Colonial Heartland March 17–24, 2007
				Horses and Icons of the Wild West August 26–September 1, 2007
				Masai Mara Wildlife Reserve, Kenya September 7–21, 2007
				Australia Wildlife November 1–20, 2007

I’m a total convert to the digital darkroom. Whether I start from a film scan or from an original digital file, the resulting image ends up in my computer where I use Photoshop to fine tune the image. I apply normal darkroom techniques, the same techniques as would be done in the traditional optical darkroom. Dodging and burning certain areas—lightening or darkening portions of the image, respectively—are perhaps the most basic, and most used, of all darkroom procedures. If you’re like me and once had an optical darkroom, you remember making strange shapes with your hands to control where the enlarger’s light would and would not strike the photo paper. Today, working in the digital darkroom is a lot easier (although if you really want to, you can still make those bizarre hand motions).

While Photoshop actually has dodge and burn tools within the program, there is a much easier, more precise way to work. Let’s look at a photo that needs some work. Here’s a picture of Turret Arch, as seen through the North Window, which I took in Arches National Park.

The first thing to do is simply look at the image and evaluate what needs to be done in terms of dodging and burning. Here I would like to tone down slightly the right side of the frame, and open up just a bit the shadowed area at the very bottom. In other words, I would like to even out the tone of the rock wall. Here’s how to do it. By the way, this technique works with any version of Photoshop.

First of all, change the image on your monitor to full screen mode (press the F key to cycle through the three different screen views). You want to end up with the monitor showing your image against a gray background. Why do this step? If you’re in normal screen mode (the standard view when you open Photoshop) your selected tool turns into a cursor when you mouse off the image. In full screen mode you can run a tool off-image and it stays the same. This means making selections is quite a bit easier. Once you’re in full screen mode, click on the eyedropper tool and set the size to a 3x3 sample (you’ll understand why shortly), then click on the lasso tool and select the area you want to work on. You could use some feathering on the lasso, but I’ll show you a way to determine the feathering after the fact.

Select the first area, the section on the right we want to darken, keeping the lasso slightly inside the area. I’ll outline this area in bright green, as it’s hard to see Photoshop’s “marching ants” selection otherwise.

Now add a Curves adjustment layer. When you do this, the marching ants around your selection disappear. Not to worry, the selection is still there. Mouse over the selected area while holding down the left mouse button and the cursor turns into an eyedropper. On the curve a ball will appear indicating the value of the spot directly under the eyedropper. When you are over an area representative of the part of the image you want to correct, do a Ctrl-click (Mac people, a Command-click). This sets that exact point value on the curve. Having previously set the eyedropper to use a 3x3 sample area avoids accidentally clicking on a single anomalous value pixel.

Now use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move this point up (to lighten the selected area) or down (to darken the area). Just remember that subtle movements are good. Watch your screen image until you get the effect you want. Let’s darken that area a bit.

Here’s how the image now looks:

Run the same procedure for lightening the bottom shadow area. Select the area:

Then make another Curves adjustment layer exactly like before. Mouse over the selected area, Ctrl-click to set a point, and use the up or down arrows to adjust. This time we’ll move the curve slightly upwards.

Continue making these dodge or burn selections as needed.

You do need to soften the edge of the area you’re changing. You could have used a feathered edge on the lasso—about 15 pixels for small images, more for larger ones. The best method, however, is after you have made each Curves adjustment layer, run a Gaussian blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur). Adjust the pixel width of the blur as you watch your on-screen image. What you’re doing here is blurring the edge of the selection, the mask you have made. If you have the “preview” button checked in the Gaussian blur box, you will see the changes on-screen. Just pull the slider over until you like the effect.

Three simple steps to the best dodge and burn technique I know: make a selection, run a curves adjustment layer, add a Gaussian blur. Easy, fast, and editable after the fact.

Announcement: John's newest book, John Shaw's Photoshop Fieldguide, is now available. This is an ebook on CD, with step-by-step instructions on making prints using Photoshop and Epson printers. It will be available only from John's website, www.johnshawphoto.com.