Learn About Dodging and Burning

Dodging and burning are options in a quality photo editor. But these are methods of manipulating a photograph invented many years ago by photographers in their darkrooms.

Burning

Burning is a technique to add more detail to a portion of the image. The photographer would make a normal print then create a mask, often just using his hands, to block off a large area of the image. This adds a little more exposure time to the area of the print that is not blocked off.

Dodging

Dodging does the opposite. Dodging subtracts exposure time from an area of the final print. This technique uses a small “flag” to block light. The “flag” is usually made from a piece of stiff paper, like construction paper, or from thin cardboard, and is attached to something long and thin such as a small wooden dowel or section from a wire clothes hanger. The “flag” is waved over the area that is to receive less exposure.

Putting it All Together

So you add exposure to an area of the final photograph by burning, and reduce exposure be dodging. This is not the same as brightness and contrast, which affect the entire image.

There are tools in photo editing software like Photoshop for burning and dodging. Photoshop uses a brush tool to mask the area of the image you want to manipulate and the software will lighten or darken just that area the way burning and dodging would in the darkroom.

Dodging and burning are tools that let the photographer balance their picture. Maybe everything in your photograph is perfect except the sky is overexposed and the shadows are too dark. Using Photoshop in post production you can reduce the exposure of the sky by dodging, bringing the color back to a normal range, and increase the exposure of the shadows by burning allowing more of the details to show.