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Thread: Burning down the corners in Photoshop

  1. #1

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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Any tips or good references for burning down the corners of prints in Photoshop? I looked at the Photokit analog tools, but they do not work on greyscale images, and coverting my 4x5 B+W images to color to use their plug in gives me real memory problems.

  2. #2
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Open a fresh image, make a snapshot in the History pallette, click on the brush of the snapshot , highlight original, go over to tool menu and click on history bruch tool, go up to tool settings, choose a soft brush with 0% hardness and a huge brush, in mode select linear burn, select 10% opcacity and 100% flow. Burn to your hearts content. We call these snapshots "virtual layers" because they cannot be saved seperately but they give the most sophisticated burning and dodging tools in PS, far superior to the burn and doge tool or traditional darkroom methods because these burn or dodge in a linear manner which is much more believeable.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  3. #3

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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Ed, try this as a quick and dirty method:

    1. Create a new layer on top of your image

    2. Switch it's blending mode to "Soft Light"

    3. Using one of several methods, paint your corners black on the new layers

    This could be as simple as using large, soft-edge brush and black ink or you could use an inverse black-to-transparent center gradient, or any of the other two dozen methods for creating soft-edged shape in the middle or in the edges.

    A helpful note: Black ink in Soft Light blending mode (always on a separate layer!) is a rough digital equivalent of "burning" while using white ink is the equivalent of "dodging". Like I said before, there are dozens of methods for laying the ink down (or removing it, for that matter), some of them very creative.

    4. Finetune the result by adjusting opacity of the Soft Light layer.

    5. You can create multiple layers for both dodging and burning using this technique. In fact, it is better to do it in several steps involving different layers.

    I hope this fits your bill.

    Regards,

  4. #4

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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    OR...

    Make a new channel and apply a gradiant blend from black to white, use the channel to make a selection, use Levels and move the white slider on the lower right towards the center slightly. Perfectly even corner burning on all four corners, and less of a memory hog.

  5. #5
    Photographer, Machinist, etc. Jeffrey Sipress's Avatar
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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Enter Quickmask mode. Select gradient tool. Drag in the corners. The length of drag will spread the gradient. Convert mask to a selection (click box next to quickmask box). The marching ants line will show where the gradient is at 50%. Apply levels, either in an adj. layer or not. Fast, and very flexible as to the degree and placement of the gradient. You can even start the gradient off the image and drag it in to the corner to further spread the gradient. This is my favorite technique to work on skies and foregrounds.

  6. #6
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    If none of you guys have tried my technique above for linear burning and dodging you are missing one of the sweetest techniques I have ever worked out in PS.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  7. #7

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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Jeffrey,

    Very slick - can you do more than one corner at a time? I seem to be able to only do one.

  8. #8
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Another method, that's a bit more labor intensive, but that's completely reversible and doesn't alter origninal pixels.

    1. create a new layer above all other layers. fill it with 50% gray and set blend mode to "soft light"
    2. create a separate channel for every part of the print that needs individual burning or dodging treatment.
    3. make a selection on each of the channels. For areas like edges and corners, that you want to burn progressively toward the edge (areas where you'd normally use a piece of cardboard in constant in and out motion) use the gradient tool to make the selection. This will allow whatever adjustment you make to work with greater strength the closer you get to the edge or the corner.
    4. use this mask to make a selection on the burn/dodge layer.
    5. use an adjustment like brightness/contrast to darken or lighten the layer in that spot.

    All your burning and dodging adjustments can be done on this layer. If you need more dynamics than it allows, you can switch the blend mode to "overlay." The only real weakness is that the effect is progressive in relation to the density of image that's already there, so it has limited effect on highlights. If you want to burn down bright highlights, you need to use a different method (i usually work a channel or quick mask to make the selection, and then apply curves. If i want the result to be editable, I use a curves adjustment layer--which is a big file size hog. otherwise i commit to it and just apply curves to the actual image pixels.

    p.s. I just realized Marko gave the same advice. I'm posting this anyhow, because i know it can be confusing, and hearing it two different ways might help!

  9. #9

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    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    OR...

    using the lasso tool select a rectangle in the center of the image area leaving corners edges where you want burning unselected. Then invert the selection so that its selecting the corners and edges. Then play the default vignette action. When it asks for feather radius input required number. This depends on image pixel dimensions but for 20x16 print I would use the maximum of 250.

    Vignette will create a new layer on top of selected layer. Now set blending mode of vignette layer to multiply or overlay or soft light and adjust fill and or opacity to taste. ( play with the other blending modes of the vignette layer to see what happens)

    N.B. because you are using a wide feather the selection rectangle doesn't need to be very very precise so drawing freehand works very well. This technique can be used anywhere on an image for local burning or doging. Its just one of the many possible options available.

    Its much simpler than it sounds and it does all corners and edges in one operation. You can drag the layer to reposition if necessary.
    You could also do each corner/edge in a separate vignette for finer control and the wide feather makes it imperceptible.

    For smaller image pixel dimesions use a narrower feather.

  10. #10

    Burning down the corners in Photoshop

    Thanks Kirk,

    I haven't seen it done that way before.....but I'm definitely going to give it a try with some upcoming printing work.

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