burning bright spots

[crockny]

I have not had much luck with the dodge and burn tools -- if I try to burn an area that's too bright it usually just comes out an ugly gray even though it says to preserve colors ... any ideas about the best way to tone down a bright area? Right now I do a brightness or exposure layer with a mask and brush it in that way ... but is there a way to get the burn tool to work better or is that just the way it is?

[zona5101]

its been my experience when you try to burn down an area that is too far over exposed it will just go gray.

[Tito87]

Originally Posted by crockny

I have not had much luck with the dodge and burn tools -- if I try to burn an area that's too bright it usually just comes out an ugly gray even though it says to preserve colors ... any ideas about the best way to tone down a bright area? Right now I do a brightness or exposure layer with a mask and brush it in that way ... but is there a way to get the burn tool to work better or is that just the way it is?

You could try to select the highlights; make a new layer with that selection; set that layer to multiply and adjust opacity to taste.

[crockny]

So the burn tool is basically useless?

[Rentham]

I dodge and burn using a layer filled with 50% grey set to soft light or overlay. I then paint with black or white with opacity set to taste.

[Tito87]

Originally Posted by crockny

So the burn tool is basically useless?

It's not useless. It works great on B&W pictures.

[crockny]

Thanks I will try the 50% grey mask thing ... and only use the burn tool on black & white!

[ravncat]

Originally Posted by crockny

I have not had much luck with the dodge and burn tools -- if I try to burn an area that's too bright it usually just comes out an ugly gray even though it says to preserve colors

That's probably because the area is white - so preserving white, and darkening will give you grey - if you're not overexposed - but very hot highlights - you'll have a very small color component giving you a slightly off grey.

[autofocus]

another quick and painless method that works probably 75% of the time is to use the patch tool, circle the area, and then drag it to an adjacent area that's not blown out. Just make sure you have the radio button on the top menu bar set to source. This works very well on blown highlights on faces, but probably won't work well on all things

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by crockny

So the burn tool is basically useless?

no - but its not the magic recovery tool for overexposure either. It does great for localized contrast control. If there is no image data because of unrecoverable overexposure, you will only get gray.