Burning down the corners in Photoshop

[Ed Richards]

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.

[Kirk Gittings]

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.

[Marko]

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,

[Frank Petronio]

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.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

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.

[Kirk Gittings]

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.

[Ed Richards]

Jeffrey,

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

[paulr]

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!

[robc]

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.

[David Luttmann]

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.

[Ed Richards]

Kirk,

Why the history brush, rather than using a fill layer?

[Marko]

Why the history brush, rather than using a fill layer?

Ed, my guess is that Kirk is using history brush to conserve memory. Layers in general and adjustment layers in particular are great memory hogs, they can drain your resources in one big slurp and slow you down to a crawl. When you deal with large files, such as LF scans, it pays to plan your processing in advance.

Photoshop's greatest advantage is its flexibility. For any given task there are almost as many methods as there are practitioners, not to mention that they can all be easily combined.

I just gave Kirk's method a quick go and I like the way it feels. I'll keep it in my notes. Thanks, Kirk.

[robc]

Ed,

Sorry I forgot that I had edited my default vignette action. Here's the correct (and simpler version)

make a selection using the lasso tool around everything on the image that you DON'T want burned in. That may be rectangular but can be any shape or can be many different areas which require the same amount of burning. Precision drawing isn't critical because the feather to be applied will smooth out the selction.

Next invert the selection so everything you want burned in is selected.

Then feather the selction using 250 for large images(20x16).

Then create new layer from selection(layer/new/layer via copy).

Then set blending mode of new layer to multiply or overlay or soft light and adjust fill or opacity to taste.

N.B. the feather generates the gradient of the burn so if it's set to 250 it will gradient fill the innermost 250 pixels of the burn/blend.

As before you can do this on any part of the image for local burning or dodging and since it is always creating new layers all actions are reversible unless you merge them into the base layer.

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

After going to a high resolution digital seminar put on by Jeff Schewe, history brush is my best friend.

[Kirk Gittings]

Marko, yes that is one of the advantages, keeping file size down. I try to keep the layers down to a couple. The greatest advantage though is the linear "believeable" nature of the burn/dodge, the versatility, and lack of grain clumping with burning that plagues some other techniques. I also find the gradient tool (which is invaluable sometimes) to give an obvious "look" to an image even when used sparingly.

I was initiated into the snapshot/history brush technique by my friends George DeWolf and Alan Labb. What I contributed to the technique was the use of the linear burn/dodge mode which has a look to it that is alot like traditional multiple filter b&ding in variable contrast printing. As an old analogue guy, this technique makes alot of sense to my pre-digital brain.

[robc]

yep layers take up more space but when used as intermediary layers they have certain benefits.
e.g. in the example I gave you could apply curves, contrast or levels adjustments to the vignetted layer as well as any of the blending options including linear burn.
If you merge down before saving they don't take any more disk space.
Also having merged the layer down it is quite easy to generate another one at a later date and by applying the changes in reverse you can get back(almost) to where you were before assuming you haven't done any clipping on route.

I find that whilst working on an image its nice to save it with all the work layers and come back and look at it 24 hours later to get a "fresh view" at which point I may adjust any of the working layers. Only when I'm really happy with an image will I merge down all the layers. If the image isn't too big I may retain them.

incidentally just about any PS technique you can think off has deen done before. The graphic designers community has been doing this stuff since well before "digital photography" caught on as a mass market passtime. Afterall, those smart people at adobe thought to provide all the tools necessary to allow the thechniques to be performed.

[Frank Petronio]

One really old school tip is to convert selections into paths, saving an extra layer or channel. Sure, you still have to redo a few steps to get a nice feathered selection, but paths take up very little memory.

For that matter, you can draw paths on your low res versions and paste them into your giant 500mb scans latter, saving some time and horsepower.

[paulr]

the way to conserve memory when working with a burn/dodge layer (the way Marko and i described) is to do all your work on a low-res version of the file ... like 1/4 scale. this file will be 1/16 the size of the hi res original, so you can go crazy with channels, curve layers, etc. without any slowdown. when everything looks great, you can transfer the adjustment layers and the burn/dodge layer to your hi res file. the burn/dodge layer just needs to be scaled to fit.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Ed, I once figured out how to do numerous drags without each one replacing the previous. I think you set the mode to 'multiply', or maybe hold the shift key down. I can't remember now, but it is handy.

So many good ideas here, I want to try some of these. I do use soft brushes all the time to dodge and burn, and to mask areas to work in levels, but for the the corners, as originally asked, I use the gradient mask.

[Kirk Gittings]

I have an PS action for gradient edge burning. I have never used it. I think it came from George DeWolf. Send me an email request and I will send it back to you.

[Kirk Gittings]

Actually, I have been playing with it and it works pretty well. Let me know if you want it.

[Greg Miller]

"Why the history brush, rather than using a fill layer?"

No offense intended but one major reason not to use the history brush (ever) is that once you close your file then you are commited. The history point is gone. Minimally you would want to duplicate your background layer so you always have the original to go back to - but then you just lost your memory savings. And even then you would have to redo all your work.

A similar approach, and one that is forever changeable - and does not use much memory at all - is to use a curve layer to burn as desired. Then paint (or use a gradeient) in the layer mask to remove/add this effect as desired. Changing the blending mode to luminosity (or something else)may be desired. Using a curve allows great flexibilty in amount of burn in each tonal area. And fine tuning is also available by changing the layer opacity. With this method you can fine tune the effect years later.