shir

Yes. It's how original burn works. Look at layer "bs o-100% h-100%". This layer is made with original burn tool. It was surprising for me too. I tried with hard light, but couldn't simulate same effect. And yes, I agree with you - burn highlights is almost useless, so I don't want spent many time on it. There are plenty of edited images in which I used d&b and which I want to change a bit. And I had to remade d&b editing. So tried to change to non-destructive d&b hot it was in tutorial and I didn't get same effect. That's why I started my investigations. When I edit new images I start with this blend option curves, but almost always edit them to get needed effect.

All have started with this tutorial Non-Destructive Dodge & Burn. When I tried to use it I found that I don't have same effect as real dodge & burn tool. Then I asked this question in Forum, and got some ideas. But still wasn't happy. I decided to figure it out and followed next steps in my investigation: dodge&burn simulation.afphoto - I prepared stepped gradient. - Copied it and applied dodge and burn tools with different tonal ranges (highlights, midtones, shadows) and different opacity and hardness (100% and 50%). - Above original gradient I created new 50%-grey layer with Overlay blend mode. - Draw with white (for dodge) and black (for burn) brush with same opacity and hardness preferences. - Edit Blend options for this new later to get same result as appropriate dodge and burn And here are results that I have: Dodge Highlights. Dodge midtones Dodge shadows (yes, shadows are very similar to midtones). Burn highlights This can't be simulated with "Overlay" blend mode, because in overlay white always states whites, but with burn highlights white becomes grey. I tried over blend modes, but without success. Very hard to simulate. Burn midtones I didn't have exactly match. But very close. I don't think you will notice a difference in real work. Burn shadows I also attach Affinity Photo file with my experiments, so anybody may try. Here are some shortcuts used to name layers: - d - dodge - ds - dodge simulation - b - burn - bs - burn simulation - h - highlights - m - midtones - s - shadows - o-100% - opacity 100% - h-100% - hardness 100% dodge&burn simulation.afphoto Conclusions: using non-destuctive dodge&burn with Overlay blend mode may be pretty tricky. I hope developers will make native non-destructive dodge-burn tool. Something like healing tool with option "Current and bellow".

Thank you, your post was helpful. Your idea to experiment with gradient layer to figure out how blend options are work is great! For someone who still wonder how to implement non-desctuctive dodge for highlights. As said before use 50% grey layer with overlay blend mode. To apply it only to highlights open Blend Options and in right frame "Underlaying Composition Ranges" pull left point down to the bottom. Then use dodge tool with "highlights" tonal range on this new layer. Looks like with this method it work a bit softer, so to make same effect I used dodge tool twice on same place (or reduce opacity twice).

> Non-Destructive Dodge & Burn Is there a way to make non-desctuctive dodge but for highlights? As I understand, the tutorial's ways is applied to whole lights. I guess I may use Blend Options some way, but can figure out how to use them.

+1 for this feature

Looks like the new version doesn't add exif info on JPEG export. Here are info for a same ".afphoto" file exported in the previous version: and in the current one: