There are actually a number of different ways you can accomplish this. I’m not a professional with any of these techniques, but here are a couple that I have used. Using the magnetic lasso tool, create a selection that includes the hands. Copy that area and then paste it onto a new layer. Then you can use the burn and dodge tools to work on just the hands. Or, as an alternative, you could use the brightness/contrast tool or the lightness Ctrl on the hue/saturation tool to make adjustments to the layer. And then, you can always adjust the opacity of the layer as well.
I would only add to Jim’s suggestion that you feather your selection a few pixels first. (Under the Select Menu.) Otherwise you may get a visible hard edge if you’re making more pronounced changes.
This is the way I do it. I use a layer, choose a large black soft brush and paint it over with 50% opacity.
After this has been done I reduce the opacity of the layer to the apropriate amount of shading. I learned this works much better than darkening a selection as often -if you ever work in colour- the saturation increases and you will have to adjust this too. Moreover, a large soft brush prevents visible hard edges.
In classical portraiture I use the same technique for vignetting the corners, both in the studio and in environmental portraiture. This is a much more exact way of vigneting than the "old" analogue way of applying dark vignettes in the bellows type shades I used just only a year ago.
The classical technique to avoid this problem is to shade the light from the hands; this way you will produce a soft and very natural way of vignetting.
If you work in a studio with a softbox as the mainlight, tilt the softbox upwards until the hands will darken; just a slight difference often will do the job.
Leen
The Kelby method of dodge and burn is my favorite. A little more involved, but infinitely adjustable.
1. Create a new layer over your base image (Layer<New<Layer). When the New Layer dropdown appears, change Mode to Overlay (or Soft Light) and put a check in the box "Fill with neutral color (50% gray)
2. Choose the new gray layer in the layers palette.
3. Set your color picker in the toolbox to default colors (black and white).
4. Go to the brush tool; select a soft brush with opacity perhaps 20%.
5. ‘Paint’ on the gray layer with white to lighten the image below, black to
darken. Can switch back and forth between black and white to your heart’s content.
Chuck
