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Dodging and burning in photography – Photography podcast #49

Photography podcast #49 discusses dodging and burning your photographs. Dodging means making parts of a photo lighter and burning in makes parts of your photograph darker. Almost ALL photographs require some dodging and burning. The images below by Yisehaq are great examples. Look how much more alive image 2 looks after some dodging and burning.

In terms of the actual techniques used to dodge and burn a photo you can try this one if you have Photoshop. Create a new layer and set your blending mode to soft-light or overlay. Use an opacity of around 4-15%. Use a SOFT paint brush with these settings. To burn (darken) use black as the foreground colour in the palette. To dodge (lighten) use white as the foreground colour.

This podcast was inspired by Yisehaq a member of our photography forum. Feel free to join – it’s fun and free! This podcast was recorded in a park. Please let me know if you found the ambient noises too distracting.

Many thanks to Yisehaq for letting me use the above images of the Blue Nile as a teaching tool!

Post edited August 18 2008 – Adding 2 of my own images to further illustrate the difference between the image after it comes out of the camera versus the dodged and burned result. The result looks much livelier and the main reason is the local dodging and burning. These are of the grand canyon and they are the same images from the podcast on deliberately underexposing your images.

Image 1 of the Grand Canyon (leveling/quick colour balance)

Image 2 – after including quite a bit of dodging and burning and a quick sharpen.
After a while you’ll learn to see the potential tones just waiting to come out.

Links/topics mentioned in this podcast:
Original thread with Yisehaq’s images and comments
Photo assignment forum on Photography.ca

Thanks as always to Benoitc23, Benny and DeStefanoPhotography for recent comments and suggestions. We LOVE comments and suggestions so please send more.

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca – Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. I Subscribe with iTunes I Subscribe via RSS feed I Subscribe with Google Reader I

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Tags: burning, dodging, dodging and burning, photograph, photography

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Portrait from the Plateau – Sunday in the Park

One of the many amazing aspects of Montreal is the regular gathering of different people to enjoy whatever is going on. Sunday in the Park (at Mount Royal) has been a tradition for over 10 years. Hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people get together and play drums, dance, juggle, imbibe, play frisbee etc. The girl in this photograph (I HAVE to start asking names) looked so peaceful practicing her art that I HAD to take this photo – I asked first though.
Exif data – F-4.0 1/250 ISO 100

Tags: montreal photography, Photographs, photography, portraits

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Portrait from the Plateau

I recently moved into one of the best parts of Montreal called Plateau Mont -Royal AKA The Plateau or Le Plateau. There are so many interesting people in this bustling and artsy part of town that I think I may start a new series of casual ’street’ portraits just for fun.

Yesterday as I walked through my new favourite location (Parc Lafontaine), I spotted 2 lovers in a hammock and asked if I could take their portrait. They agreed and I think I captured the feelings they have for one another. This was shot at about 6pm with no flash or reflector, only ambient light.

Tags: le plateau, Montreal, montreal photography, photograph, photography, portraits

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Baby – newborn photography – Photography podcast #48

Photography podcast #48 discusses baby and newborn photography. We talk about what lighting to use. We also talk about good positions for babies as well as give tips on ideas on how to make your baby photography more interesting. This podcast was inspired by demontecarlo3 a member of our photography forum. Feel free to join – it’s fun and free! Final note – this podcast was recorded on a rainy day in the park. Please let me know if you found the ambient noises too distracting.

Many thanks to Dominic Fuizzotto for letting me use these images.

Links/topics mentioned in this podcast:
Distractions in photographs

Thanks as always to Benny, Ed and Sergey for recent comments and suggestions. We LOVE comments and suggestions so please send more.

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

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Tags: baby photography, newborn photography, photographing babies, photography

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Flash sync speeds – Photography podcast #47

Photography podcast #47 talks about flash sync speeds. We talk about what the flash sync speed is (it’s also called x-sync) and how very important it is especially when you are taking daylight portraits outdoors. We also talk about high-speed flash sync as well as answer Sergey’s question about why the high speed flash sync is not working with the transmitters that he is using.

Links/topics mentioned in this podcast:
My sleepy dog photograph
Sunny 16 rule
ST-E2 transmitter
Canon 580 flash series with the OC-E3 off-camera shoe cord

Thanks as always to Benny, Merman, Tmat, Yowzah, Tim and Sergey for recent comments and suggestions. We LOVE comments and suggestions so please send more.

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: flash, flash sync, hi speed flash sync

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Sleepy Dog

Below is the original image (with distractions) – added as a result of the comments

The top image tries to follow the ‘rules’ from photo podcast #46 where we talked about distracting elements in photographs. This is a shot of a dog sleeping in a local convenience store. I spent about 15 minutes ‘cleaning up’ this photo. By cleaning up I’m specifically talking about removing distracting elements. In this case the distracting elements were brightness problems. I wanted the focus of the shot to be on the dog’s face and snout so I burned in (darkened) almost everything that was brighter than the face and snout. By doing this I’m actively guiding the viewer’s eye to where I want it to go.
Did I do a good job? Comments? Questions?

Tags: Photographs, Photography tips

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