Investigations about non-destructive dodge&burn

[shir]

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".

[anon1]

I have to admit that I don´t really get the logic involved in your calculations.

When you burn the shadows, you set blend if so that it has 100% Opacity at the highlight section on the right?!  :blink:

And in the mid tone curve you set 100% opacity in the highlights as well?

 

I´d just do a bottom left to top right diagonal to target more of the highlights, and a reverse diagonal to target more of the shadows. And maybe add a third node and uncheck linear to taper the curve down a bit further if I´d like to enhance the separation.

 

A Sort of triangle would do for the midtones for me. (Bottom left and right, mid top)

 

+ you can use hard light blend mode to burn highlights (but I wound´t recommend it cause grey highlights just look plainly awful/ dirty in most cases)

 

In the end, for me, it´s not so much about the exact curving but rather about D&B till it looks right. So in the end it´s your strokes that vary the intensity rather than the 100% perfect curvature in the blend if dialog.....

[shir]

I have to admit that I don´t really get the logic involved in your calculations.

When you burn the shadows, you set blend if so that it has 100% Opacity at the highlight section on the right?!  :blink:

And in the mid tone curve you set 100% opacity in the highlights as well?

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.

 

+ you can use hard light blend mode to burn highlights (but I wound´t recommend it cause grey highlights just look plainly awful/ dirty in most cases)

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.

 

In the end, for me, it´s not so much about the exact curving but rather about D&B till it looks right. So in the end it´s your strokes that vary the intensity rather than the 100% perfect curvature in the blend if dialog.....

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.