Tuesday, June 24  |  6:30 PM MST  |  $20

Live via Zoom

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I've spent several years of my life in the dark. Wait . . . that wasn't such a great opening line, was it? I meant in the photographic darkroom. So many of the techniques we used in the wet darkroom can, conceptually, translate to the digital darkroom. Burning and dodging are just two of my favorites and were quite often used in the wet darkroom.

 

These two techniques required slight-of-hand, quick math skills and a good pre-visualization of the final print even before I pushed the button to expose the image onto the photographic paper. 

 

Dodging was a method to hold back light during the initial exposure of the image. For example, I have determined for a 10 second exposure for optimal density for my image. But there are some shadows under the rocks in this exquisite waterfall scene that I hiked 3 miles into the high-country just to photograph. 10 seconds is going to be to much intensity from this 10-second exposure for these shadows rendering them black and lifeless. Can't have that! I will need to hold back or dodge some of that 10 second exposure in the shadow area to create soft and detailed tones. Just the way my Dad and Ansel taught me to make a photograph. I would cut out varying sizes of circles from cardboard and tape them to the end of a thin wire. During that 10 second exposure I would hold thIs wand in the beam of light from the enlarger bulb dodging light from those shadows . . . but just a little bit. It really was more of a trial and error method to get it right. Experience made for less error. But it was a very powerful tool in photographic printing. Extremely valuable as I used it on all kinds of images to enhance the image quality. 

 

The burning technique, or burning-in as it was referred to in the wet darkroom days, is just the opposite of dodging. Back to my waterfall image for a moment . . . I would use a long exposure so the water would become soft and silky in the final print. It would be easy to have the surface of the water become white with blown out highlights with this type of long-exposure photography. I would need to add additional exposure to those highlights above and beyond my initial 10 second exposure. Again, more slight of hand! One way to accomplish this was to grab another piece of cardboard and cut a hole in the middle of it. I would make my initial 10 second exposure, then turn the enlarger bulb back on covering the lens with this cardboard only letting light project thru the hole on the area of my paper where those highlights would be blown-out. This additional exposure would be a trial and error project, but when it was right, wow! Beautiful final print!

 

Got all of that? Well, it doesn't really matter because I will share with you how to achieve those same type of results for your imagery with techniques I've developed in Photoshop. Or more appropriately, techniques I'v learned from many other Photoshop experts and educators that I have tweaked to fit into my style of digital workflow. All I ask is that you understand the concept of these two very powerful and versatile techniques. Then once you're comfortable with the basics of them, tweak them to you workflow and make them your own! That you got, right?

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Alright then, here we go, man . . . 

Stop . . . I know your thinking "Why not just use the dodge tool right in the Photoshop tool palette?". Two reasons for not using it. First reason is that we should be working with a non-destructive mind set. You have to use the dodge tool right on your image layer. It will alter those poor little pixels we've worked so hard at protecting. You shoot in RAW, right? Good, because when in Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW you are editing the algorithms and not pixels. So don't do it here, then! The burning tool does the same thing, it kills pixels! Don't do it, man!

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Just sign up for this Master Session and I'll help you save some brain cells from being unnecessarily killed off.

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🔗 Register RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ------------------> 

 

Spots are limited!

 

The Zoom link will be sent to your registering email address the day before the session. See you then & there!