If you just make a selection, the effect of the tool will be limited to that area. Is that what you want?
David,
Dodge and Burn (and other tools as well) will affect only the selected area. That is, if you run your mouse over the selection but also drift outside the selection, you will see that only the selection will be affected. You might want to feather the selection a few pixels to make a soft transition between the touched up area and the rest of the picture.
Mark
Another technique I like to use is to use a top layer in overlay blending mode, filled with 50% gray. Then use the dodge and burn tools on that layer, because any mistakes can easily be undone simply by painting the problem area with 50% gray using an appropriately sized brush.
Colin – Thanks for the prompt reply – I am new to this forum but I aready feel welcome. Anyway, yes I want to under/over expose very limited areas because my background may be bright or cluttered and sunny, etc.
I have not been able to maintain the selection with clone stamp, dodge or burn tools – it’s as thought the selection goes away when one of these tools is selected???
Thanks,
David
I have not been able to maintain the selection with clone stamp, dodge or burn tools – it’s as thought the selection goes away when one of these tools is selected?
Something is odd. A selection should maintain through the use of all these tools. Just to check: You make a selection [marching ants displayed], then select say Burn and the marching ants disappear?
BTW, with the Clone tool, it’s so much better to clone onto a new layer, as you can easily fix mistakes as you go along. Then just Merge Down when you’re done.
Mark,
In your msg#3, how do you select 50% gray when using the Brush tool? I have PSE2.
Mark,
To paint with 50% gray … open the colour swatches palette (Window>ColourSwatches) , make sure that you have the default set loaded and you will find all the grays there … listed as percentages 🙂
Wendy
Mark,
You can can also use your color picker to easily select a gray percentage using the HSB color model. To set a gray percentage, first tick the S (Saturation) box. Set H to 0; set S to 0; then input the desired percentage of gray into the B field. So, 50% gray is H=0; S=0; B=50.
Terri
Usually I change the blend mode of the "overlay" layer back to normal and use the eye dropper in an area that is untouched by burning or dodging. Then you can change it back to overlay and have at it with the brush tool.
Mark,
I think that your way is probably the quickest 🙂
Wendy
