Burn Tool

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PSDTUTS Photoshop Wiki / Photoshop Tools / Burn Tool

[edit] What does the Burn Tool do?

The burn tool is based on the principles of photographic development, from back in the dark ages when people still used film. Its function is to darken areas of an image. The burn tool, like the dodge tool, is artistic in nature. They allow you to direct focus and create impact in the image through highlighting and shadowing, and allowing you to alter the exposure of the photo. These tools are great if you want to make a certain feature of the image the centre of attention.

This image is a before and after shot of a picture that is in its natural form on the left, and has burn applied to the landscape (but not the girl) on the right, to give you an idea of what the tool looks like in practice.

[edit] How to Use the Burn Tool

The options bar has four settings for the burn tool: brush size and shape, range, exposure and airbrush.

The Brush Size and Shape settings are standard and no different to those used with the Brush Tool.

The Range setting determines which pixels the burn tool darkens. Choosing Shadows will make the darker pixels darker, Highlights will make the lighter pixels darker, and Midtones will darken those pixels in the middle range.

Generally, when you’re manipulating a photograph you’ll want to darken the shadows with the burn tool and lighten the highlights with the dodge tool, so if you’re unsure of which range setting to select, it’s usually safest to use Shadows.

Exposure determines how much the pixels will be darkened. It’s usually best to keep this relatively low, as you want to use the burn tool to enhance the photo, not make it look totally different.

The Airbrush button allows you to burn as if you were using an airbrush rather than a paintbrush – it’s smoother and allows you to control the pressure more evenly. Since subtlety is the key to good burning (and photo manipulation in general), it may be a good idea to turn it on.

Once you have the settings configured to your taste, go slowly and patiently (with your exposure set low – 5% is a good starting point, but experiment until you find an optimal configuration) and begin to darken the areas you believe are too light. With exposure this low, you’ll need to repeatedly cover the same area until you’re happy with the level of darkness, but the alternative is using a high exposure which gives you less control, and consequently ends up looking obvious and ruining the image.

The Burn tool is best used in conjunction with the Dodge tool to fix poor exposure in your photographs. Remember to identify which areas should be light and dark before beginning; if you try to go by feel, there’ll be no rhyme or reason to your choices and hence the lighting won’t look cohesive. This screams fake to viewers.

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