Adobe® Photoshop® Deep Dive: Blend Modes

Lesson Info

Faux Dodge and Burn, Lightening Wrinkles

For really fine tuning areas that are in shadow in areas that you need to lighten and light areas that you need to darken like hot spots. This is a technique that I use on every single portrait that I shoot or that I retouch ok in my business and you better believe I use it on my own pictures t because what's the benefit of having these skills if you can't do it on your own photos, right? So for this technique, what we're going to do is we're going to create a new layer, we're going to fill it with fifty percent gray and then we're going to use the brush tool set to paint with white where we wanna lighten and we're going to use the brush till set to paint with black where we want to darken and if we change that layers blend mode to soft light, the gray disappears in what we're left with is a non destructive dodging burn tool okay, so easy way tio create a new layer, change its blend mode and fill it with that particular blend modes neutral color is to use a keyboard shark it and it is ...

shift command in on a mac or shift control in on a pc in the new layer dialog box photo shop asked what would you like to name the new layer? Well, let's? Call it photo dodge and burn or something meaningful to you you'll see we've got a modem in you right here there's your blood modes so we can set the plan move before we actually create the layer so for this technique, we're actually going to use soft light and you can think of this technique is a soft dajun burn so soft like kind of makes sense okay, then you'll notice that we have a check box here called fill with soft light neutral color fifty percent gray let's go ahead and give that a chick click ok photoshopped makes the layer filled with gray okay, why are we not seeing in your gray on her image? Because for the blend mode of soft light fifty percent gray's neutral, which means it drops out it disappears but we've still got that layer under which we can paint so with the brush too active and if we want to do a little selective lightning liketo lighten the shadows down here let's paint with white lighten quite darken painted black. Now I want to make one more change because this kind of thing in my opinion needs to be incredibly subtle this kind of a retouch and it's so easy to go too far on it like with a single brush truth so what I like to do when I'm doing this technique is I lower the opacity of the brush itself so that I can continue making breast strips to build the effect instead of making one brush stroke and it being too much ok so let's trot out to the options bar and let's lower the opacity of the brush to no more than fifteen percent now let's come back to the area we wanna lighten will start out with this area right here make our brush of about the size of the area that we want to defect to make sure you get a soft brush make sure that you're painting with white that looks a little gray to me so I'm gonna press d to set my color chips to the default of black and white then I'm gonna press x so that why it is on top it's just a visual anomaly because that chip looks great on my screen but it's not ok so now let's come over to the image and let's paint around the areas that we want to latin see how subtle that iss and you khun build up your strokes to build up the effect ok so I'm gonna make my brush a little bit smaller coming here to this area and just paint great technique to use in conjunction with a graphics tablet okay, now we'll come over here and lightened that area just a little bit maybe a little under the eyes okay now come over here to our other lady increase our birth size and let's lighten that area just a bit go down. Inverse eyes light in this part of little bit. People are always asking me. Well, how do you get rid of the double chin like? Well, you could, you know, do plastic surgery you could make a selection and you could actually physically make that area smaller. But I prefer just to make it not quite as noticeable just by lightning it because all it really is is a shadow. Ok, so does fighting a little bit that way, it's not the first thing that you see in an image. And that way you haven't fundamentally changed the shape of the person. Unless they're paying you to change their shape and then that's fine by armies, I would use the liquefy tool instead if you wanted to change shape. Okay, but I try not to do that now if we wanted tio continue to lighten any of this stuff. Let's say we wanted to suddenly lytton, you know her hair a little bit in these areas. Way could do that too. Okay, so there is no end to this technique, so we'll do a quick before and after before after settle it's just lifting the shadows of a little bit if it's a little too overdone drop layer rapacity hey, so now you could do your phone burning on the same layer or if you really want to build in adding flexibility you could create another one of these layers into your darkening on that layer but for this particular image it's fine to go ahead and do it on this layer so now too dark and what do we need to do paint with black so it's pressed x to flip flop our color ships come on over to our ladies and let's increase our birth size we have the brush to active when we've already changed the opacity fifteen percent that stays changed we change it back so we don't need tio mess with that setting at the moment so I'm going to come down here and wherever they're shiny spots you're just gonna dark in them very subtle keep brushing over the same areas to darken it a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more saying with lightning very, very subtle very flexible nondestructive technique okay let's call that good and see there's a before there's an after and what happens if you go too far let's say oh my god you know I went crazy on the darkening flip flop your color chips and paint with white again and you'll lighten the area that he over darkened right back up that's what makes this technique so flexible if you were using the dodge and burn tools which live right here in your tools pale those suckers air so destructive yes, they were re tooled in c s five I believe and they got a little bit less destructive because what a dummy do they added this check box we'll protect my skin tones whatever it still doesn't work that well thanks, but no thanks this technique will serve you so well as a photographer in a researcher and you will be the most popular photographer in your immediate of circle of friends and family to so and we're going to do that technique over and over and over but you can see the difference between those two layers that we created in the original so here's our original photo with no I brightening no teeth frightening, no selective lining, a darkening and there's the retail portrait and still are original is intact heck, the background layers still even locked so save this puppy is a layered photo shot file come back to it if you printed or the client says you know I want some other kind of change or heavy so let's see the same thing on this image already made that layer for you but we're gonna keep doing it again and again so here's our original I brightening right there's the original photo there's our eye brightening and sometimes it's okay for the eyes to be a little bit brighter than the rest of the face okay. That's actually a creative affect. Right? So in here is thief oh, dodge and burn layer. Okay, so watch when I turn it on. What did I do? My position, the image so you can see it so here's the faux dodge and burn off there's an on so all I did was do a little more lightning in these little shadow areas on her eyes. Okay, great way tio lightened wrinkles ever so slightly because what's a wrinkle it's a shadow that's all it is digitally right it's shadow so that's how you can lighten wrinkles so now let's, take a look at all of this dude all these techniques work on deeds as well. Of course they do. Okay, so let's, look at our before image of paints looked our original there's the original ok so here's ire I brightening before after this is the higher the a large, large pixel dimension image so I can actually zoom away. And so you all can see so there's the before there's the after and here is some teeth whitening. Ok, so let's do it together. We are still working in folder number ten. If you're following along so let's create an empty adjustment layer brightness and contrast close at the settings set the blood mode to screen fill the layer mass with black men oppress x to flip on my color ships and I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut of option delete on a mac or halt backspace on a pc to fill the layer mass with black first the to grab the brush tool knowing that I changed the brush capacity a moment ago, I'm gonna go ahead and bump it back up to one hundred for this technique press x to flip on your color ships so that you're painting with white because why it was my background color ship make sure you have a softer edge brush come over to the document, make your brush a little bit bigger than the eyes and just brighten right up the same thing on the teeth because in that way easier than like trying to make a selection of teeth awful awful now we're gonna blur that mask strapped to the filter menu gaussian where was the last filter we ran that's fun now let's drop capacity on it? You know, maybe somewhere around thirty some odd percent there's before there's an after one more variation on that technique quickly is that you could really paint the irises and the whites of the eyes and the teeth ok, so I've just done the same thing that we've done a moment ago brings in contrast adjustment layer fill the layer massive black changes limo to screen and we could come in here and zoom way the heck in and very painstakingly brighten his irises like that that's a different technique makes for a different look, ok? And then if the whites of the eyes needed, you could brighten them a little bit as well. So just whichever kind of look you're going for if you want something a little bit more dramatic, you might do it this way. You come down here and also reveal that on the teeth, so I'm taking a little bit well, not too much more time to paint them, but in the drop capacity till the effects looks good to you. So there's the before and there's the after now, this particular set of teeth has a little bit of a yellow color caste. How do I get rid of that? We're going to use a hugh saturation adjustment layer, and what I'm going to do is go ahead and I'm gonna close this I'm gonna make my mask first, okay, someone to fill it with black toe here we go and then I'm gonna have the brush tool set to paint with white and I was going to go across his teeth right here now let's pop back open that hugh saturation adjustment layer and what we're going to do is we're going to choose the offending color from the master poppet mini so if you've got teeth with the yellow cast let's, choose yellows from that poppet menu and all you gotta do is drive the saturation bar to the left. Okay, so here's the before and after on the color change on the teeth so there's the before they've got a significant yellow cast and there's the after saw you've done is de saturated just the yellows. Ok, so before after so that's that's a quick way to get rid of the color caste, and it'll work on any kind of color cast as it had to be on teeth, it could be the whole image may be fit looks yellow to you. You could use this trick if it looks red when you choose rids from the pop up menu here. Ok, so again, that last part was simply adding a huge saturation adjustment layer. Ok, then I'm gonna go ahead and feel that mask with black, grab the brush tool set to paint with white paint across the teeth and then pop back open the hugh saturation adjustment panel, and then we're going to choose the offending color from the poppet menu right here, and then we're going to drive the saturation slider to the left as far as you need to to get rid of that color caste, any questions on that part way have some great questions going back a little bit yeah, we did definitely have some about all these kind of things, starting with the eyes let's go ahead and start with more general gen core one is one thing if you do anything different with this technique for people with darker skin tones or is it just because it's still relative is still lightning a darkening yeah, so I wouldn't change anything school and a question from grease see is is there a way to do the same technique as the faux dodge and burned to adjust saturation in a photo by painting the areas you want brighter? I'm sure there is, but I haven't tried that, so probably thank you for the question on ben t long good is wondering whether this the soft light technique could be used to lighten red areas when the subject is cold sure, it'll light and dark and anything but yeah it but if you are dealing with them, if you find after lightning that you still have a red cast, then use that hugh saturation adjustment trick that we just did choose reds from the master poppet many and then try dropping the saturation to get rid of that rib because if you if you like in the red spot too much, you're going to introduce pink, which is not what you want so you might be a little lightning and then you might use this you saturation adjustment layer trick to target the rids and de saturate them just a little bit as well. Question from iowa mom is how do you breaking really dark eyes? It always looks great on blue green but brown eyes dark her eyes do you have a kind of rule? Is that how far you go? Not really if the first image that we had has brown eyes so if I wanted a light and just the irises of arise I do the exact same thing brightness and contrast said it to screen fill the layer mass with black come over here with a white brush and just like we did on the guy zoom way in injust lightened the iris is being very careful not to touch that outer rim of the irs because that's supposed to be dark right? And then you're just going to drop a pass it e of that layer, you know quite a bit right so there's a before and there's a there's an after. So I have yet to meet a pair of brown eyes that this does not work on thank you perfect way have a question photo twenty five in calgary, alberta on time asking for a little clarification, but what if the color cast is a mix of colors? Then there wouldn't be anything keeping you from choosing multiple colors from that pop it mean you you don't have to for each adjustment layer for a huge saturation just mint later or not limited to on lee d saturating one color channel so there would be anything to keep you from you know dropping saturation on the yellows and if you need to go into the rigs and drop saturation on that all within the same adjustment layer thank you I think we're good way have so much more to get through today I'm very excited okay so now is close these images now we're in folder number eleven so I just want to show you briefly how you can use color dodge okay so we're still in the lightning category case we've played with light and we've played with screen now we're playing with color dodge great way to brighten a background toe add texture to a really dark background so here's our original boring right e it's ok and my say that's um pretty typography there but still this is an event poster is not gonna catch as many eyes like this as it will like that so what are we looking at here if I change the blend mode back to normal we can see and pump up the opacity turn everything else off you can see the image that I downloaded from the stock company okay it's just speculate highlights it's all it is you know I typed in white light into the service in search engine of the stock side to find this image. Ok, it's really called white lies and it's just speculate highlights is all. It is perfect for lightning and art background. Could she get these great shapes going on in here? Great for visual interest. And by using the color dodge blend mood, you increase the intensity a little bit, you get more intense colors, more saturated colors, more contrast. And then what you have to do is drop the opacity so that it looks good to you in your text. It remains readable. Okay, so you could even go away down on the opacity of this one to somewhere around thirty percent. Okay, so dealing with a dark background look for something light with interesting textures and shapes in it use color, dodge and all I did over here was at a layer mask to hide that new texture from the guitar because I didn't want the guitar to have those shapes and that extra lightning on it. Okay, so before and after, so that gives you an idea of lightning, and we did that earlier with the little mom and the little girl in the that were dressed up, and they were in the snow, we added those lighter stars around the exact same thing, different blend mode

Class Description

Lessons

1What Are Blend Modes?
2Blend Mode Details
3Blend Mode Applications
4More Blend Mode Applications
5Eye Brightening, Teeth Whitening
6Faux Dodge and Burn, Lightening Wrinkles
7Highlighting Hair, Glamour Glow, Reflections
8Sharpening
9Pencil Sketch and Poster Techniques