Dodge an Burn

[Jacobyte]

Hi everybody,
I have a real problem with the "dodge & burn" tool.
I have the feeling that I only apply light or dark color (B/W) with it and change or overpaint the image information instead of increasing or decreasing the exposure of existing pixels. This also happens if I activate the checkbox "Protect color". This happens with all settings (shadows, midtones and lights). This function is essential for me and I am very frustrated about it, because the results look very unnatural. Does anyone have an idea? Is the algorithm just bad? If so, dear Affinity Team, please improve this feature (it will convince many Photoshop users).

Lovin' Affinity

Cheers

Jacobyte

[Ron P.]

@Jacobyte,

Are you dodging and burning destructively or non-destructive, by creating a pixel layer above your image and filling it with 50% Grey and changing the Blend Mode to Overlay. You then dodge and burn on this layer. Also by default the Dodge/Burn tools have a default Opacity of 25%. You might need to adjust it to suit your needs. 

Instead of using the Dodge/Burn tools, I just use the Paintbrush tool. Much faster. Make sure you have Black and White set for your colors. Then just use the keyboard shortcut X to swap between White (Dodging) and Black (Burning). Also pressing a numerical keys changes the Opacity, 0=100%, 1=10%, 2=20% and so on.  Learn the shortcut for increasing/decreasing your brush size and hardness. I can breeze through dodge/burn easily and quickly.

Dodging/Burning uses painting to lighten or darken, right? Well you need to be flexible, adjusting settings, brush sizes depending on the area your working on. You might even need to change brushes. Using a texture brush for say working on parts of an image that has a lot of texture in it. Most of the time I use an opacity setting of less than 20%, closer to 10% so I can slowly build up the amount.

I used to use PS, haven't for a while now. I also have Corel's PSP, and Coreldraw GS. I prefer Affinity Photo.

[Jacobyte]

Thanks for your reply,

The problem for me is exactly the fact, that I've to add (also with 50% layer and it's overlay) color or b/w to the picture instead of adjusting (brighten or darken) existing pixel. This is a totally different effect and handled in PS much better because it is a real dodge & burn instead of adding color. Please Affinity-Team, have a look at it and there's may be a way of improving the Algorithm. 

Thanks in advance

Jacobyte

[Smee Again]

On 8/18/2019 at 10:10 AM, Ron P. said:

@Jacobyte,

Are you dodging and burning destructively or non-destructive, by creating a pixel layer above your image and filling it with 50% Grey and changing the Blend Mode to Overlay. You then dodge and burn on this layer. Also by default the Dodge/Burn tools have a default Opacity of 25%. You might need to adjust it to suit your needs. 

Instead of using the Dodge/Burn tools, I just use the Paintbrush tool. Much faster. Make sure you have Black and White set for your colors. Then just use the keyboard shortcut X to swap between White (Dodging) and Black (Burning). Also pressing a numerical keys changes the Opacity, 0=100%, 1=10%, 2=20% and so on.  Learn the shortcut for increasing/decreasing your brush size and hardness. I can breeze through dodge/burn easily and quickly.

Dodging/Burning uses painting to lighten or darken, right? Well you need to be flexible, adjusting settings, brush sizes depending on the area your working on. You might even need to change brushes. Using a texture brush for say working on parts of an image that has a lot of texture in it. Most of the time I use an opacity setting of less than 20%, closer to 10% so I can slowly build up the amount.

I used to use PS, haven't for a while now. I also have Corel's PSP, and Coreldraw GS. I prefer Affinity Photo.

Yes, thanks for the info. Instead of  using "overlay", I do the same with "soft light" and prefer the control I see with this blend mode.

Works better for Smee, however, your mileage may vary.

Yes, had been a PS user, then after being disappointed with Serif's Photoplus (which may been more to do with my inexperience than the software's failure to perform), started using PSP. Didn't get into coreldraw as I could get the results I needed in Drawplus (yes, simple work was the limit of what I would attempt).