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Retouching Techniques: Dodge and Burn

Lesson 10 from: FAST CLASS: The Business of Professional Headshots

Gary Hughes

Retouching Techniques: Dodge and Burn

Lesson 10 from: FAST CLASS: The Business of Professional Headshots

Gary Hughes

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Lesson Info

10. Retouching Techniques: Dodge and Burn

Lesson Info

Retouching Techniques: Dodge and Burn

now, Some of the other things that I might do is it looks like maybe his face might be a little bright compared to the rest of the image. In which case, you know, you can create a whole another layer. I'm going to use another layer. I know you guys are shocked. Here's a cool thing you could make an action for and let me show you how I do it. This is a kind of burn and dodge action, but you're not actually burning and dodging. This is a way that I used to control the highlights in the shadows in an image that's non destructive. So I'm gonna create one layer and I'm gonna rename it darkened. Actually, don't need. I need a duplicate layer. Come on, Carrie. So we're gonna delete you. Get out of here. Yes. Deleted. I won't use Commander Control J, and that's going to give me a duplicate layer, and I'm gonna call this one darkened cool, and then I'm going to This is a control that not a lot of people use. And it's a really cool and it's called the image adjustments. Shadow highlights. Okay, ...

so what? By default it does is enables you to increase the detail in the shadows a little bit or a lot, or it's getting a maybe you to bring those highlights down. So you don't want to definitely do that too much. But you can start to bring back a little detail in this highlights. So I create one layer that's going to darken. So I'll make a highlight at 10% which is going to bring the highlights in the image down. I hit OK, and then I'm going to make a layer mask with this little layer mask button right here. And then I'm going to hit, command or control I to invert that mask so that it's a dark lair mass so that it's a hidden. Or you can do that through the layer, layer, mask, hide. All reveal. Also, this is a hide all layer mask. Then I'm gonna go back, and I'm going to duplicate that bottom layer again, and I'm to do the exact same thing. Except I'm gonna do it with a dark and control shadows Highlights Boom, go OK, and I'm gonna bring those shadows. 10% hit okay at a layer mask. So let's do it this way. Layer a layer mask. Hide all Booya! Now what? I'm all what I'm looking at right now is the original bottom layer and these air both hidden. So when you have a black layer mask, toe paint through that layer mask, you need a brush that is white and you can change these air, your brushes, your foreground and background color. And you can flip those around by hitting. D will take you to the default of what those brushes are would typically be black and white. And if you just hit the X key, you can flip back and forth between the foreground and background color. So I'm gonna go default with a white brush. Nice, big, soft brush that I've been using home. That's a tiny one. Let's do that one. OK, so if I wanted a little more detail in the bottom of the suit here, this is gonna be called lightning. I would go to the lighten layer, select that mask, and now this is gonna burn and Dodge. But it's on Lee going to effect the areas that have shadow in them. So if I go to his face, the lighten isn't going to do anything to his face. It's really no matter how much I paint through it, it's not gonna affect the brighter area of the image. So you can actually be a little less precise. That would go. Let's paint all that back in. There we go. But okay, so I'm gonna grab that, make sure I'm gonna white brush, take the dark it or the lighten layer, and I'm gonna go over here and maybe I want to just like this jacket up. But I don't have to worry about it affecting the background too much because it's only really gonna affect those dark areas. I could do that over here. If you want to bring in more detail down there and now in his face, let's say I want to put this on like, 10% because you really don't want to do this too much if you want to bring down a cup. Some of those speculum highlights a little bit just is a little bit of this and, uh, take some of the highlight out to make it match a little bit more cool. Now we've got a pretty well balanced image. See his face is just a little less sparkly and tone it down just a little bit. And then that jacket's got a little more detail in it, just like so. So if you do that actually carefully, you know you can. You could do that without without all the brush marks, the stuff. But that looks pretty good. I'm happy with that that we got some of those more highlights under control. So at this point, this is where everybody's sphincter tightens. Who was a Photoshopped guru? I'm going to flatten the image. It's Latin baby, and it's not going back. And, uh, and that's pretty much the extent of the facial retouching. I don't do any skin softening actions or filters. I literally will manually retouch everybody's face.

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