Black and White & Creative Image Editing in Lightroom - Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom - page 180

Dodging and Burning with the Adjustment Brush

“Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing
tonal relationships.” ~Ansel Adams

While dodging and burning may be familiar terms to anyone brought up
with traditional darkroom techniques, the ability to open shadows and
burn highlights selectively and skillfully using a paintbrush tool is one of
the most astounding tools Photoshop has had to of er the black and white
photographer. Now, the new Adjustment Brush tool in Lightroom has become
one of my absolute favorite new additions to the workl ow. As Lightroom
was previously limited almost entirely to global image adjustments, this
new tool now af ords us some ability to make technical corrections and
creative enhancements more quickly with powerful selective adjustments like
dodging and burning.

With this tool you can lighten and darken subtle detail work with the precision
of a paintbrush. Although still not quite the same power and precision as
dodging and burning in Photoshop - which is much faster and easier in my
opinion - this Adjustment Brush tool does simplify much of the integrated
workl ow process. This new feature makes it possible to do more in Lightroom
and potentially less in Photoshop (depending on your work criteria and
standards). Selective adjustments are still the major advantage Photoshop has
to of er the workl ow, but it is pretty cool to be able to make some of these
adjustments in Lightroom. This is especially true because the changes can be
saved and applied to any number of image i les needing similar adjustments.
The adjustments are also non-destructive, meaning they can be undone at
any time, and the i le size does not increase as adjustments are made because
no layers are created.

Note:
This technique is
fairly cumbersome,
a bit sluggish, and
complicated in
Lightroom until you
get used to the way the
tools function. Although
it has advantages, I still
personally i nd dodging
and burning far easier
and faster in
Photoshop (see
“Photoshop: Dodging
and Burning with 'Soft
Light' on page 214”).

To begin, look for areas within the image that need special attention for
tonal corrections and enhancements. Brightening and darkening areas is not
only good for i xing exposure problems, but also essential for creating visual
interest. In Lightroom, you can use the Adjustment Brush tool to dodge and
burn and enhance and diversify the overall tonality within an image. This
helps to serve the separation of spectral relationships that create a dynamic
black and white image.

1. Select an image in Lightroom.

2. Select the “Adjustment Brush” from the tool strip in the Develop Module, or
Press (K).

3. The Exposure settings control the overall image brightness, with a greater
ef ect in the high values, while the Brightness settings adjust the image
brightness, mainly af ecting the midtone values.