- In this section,
we're going to push some areas further away from camera,
or give the illusion that they are further away from camera
by burning specific areas or darkening them.
At this point,
now that we've done some really nice lightening
of specific highlight areas on the skin
and we're starting to give that glow,
we definitely need to do the other side of this coin,
which is going to be burning certain areas
and darkening them to create the illusion
of form and three dimension.
So the same way we created our dodge skin layer,
we're going to add a new mask.
We're going to choose brush,
and then we're going to just darken the exposure
and do the exact same thing,
but we're going to be darkening this time
instead of lightning areas.
So we're going to give the illusion
that they are pushed further away from camera,
giving a darker look to those areas.
So I'm going to go ahead and just darken
the sides right around the hairline.
There's a very fine line between going too far
with your radius and with your flow,
and not going far enough because you can't see your effects.
So really keep that in mind,
especially when you're starting out with this technique.
It is an incredibly powerful technique for photos,
and that's why it dates all the way back to the dark room,
but it is very easy to not understand it completely,
because there is that disconnect
between when we're painting and what we're seeing, right?
There's very little feedback.
So again, we can do macro dodge and burn,
or we can do micro dodge and burn.
So I'm just coming in here and I'm darkening the eye area,
the upper eyelid, just to accentuate that out a little bit.
You could even say I'm adding a little bit
of darker makeup to that crease,
and darkening that upper lid,
which is going to give the illusion
that the eye is just a little bit more open,
because I'm darkening up there.
And then we can come in here with a bit of a larger brush
and kind of create a little bit more shadow
on the sides of the nose.
And there's a highlight here that I'd like to decrease.
Maybe increasing the shadow under the nose as well,
giving the illusion of more 3D.
And I do always like to paint around the sides
of the face too, and really come in here.
If she had her cheekbones showing,
we'd do a little bit of burning along those cheekbones,
but then again,
doing a little bit of burning around the rims of the face
to really make it pop out.
The other thing that I'm trying to do here
is add the illusion of three dimension
to the features as well,
so darkening the alternate areas
of where I brightened on the lips,
which is going to allow for a little bit more
of a more 3D appearance to the face.
Okay, so you can see that.
Now, what about micro dodge and burn?
Well, let's go ahead and zoom in to some of these blemishes
that are here as well.
And remember when I said that 90% of retouching
can be done with brightening or darkening a pixel,
or changing that pixel's color?
Well, that really, really, really rings true,
especially when it comes to blemish removal
using this specific technique.
If I go ahead and turn the visibility on and off for this,
you can see how the blemishes right there
on the jaw line give the illusion that they're much,
much smaller because I've gone ahead and darkened them.
And I can do the same over here with these blemishes.
Now, again, is this the fastest way to remove blemishes?
Absolutely not, but it really itself well as a visualization
of how powerful the dodge and burn technique is,
because you're able to literally remove blemishes
with nothing other than darkening certain pixels
and brightening other pixels around it.
And that's why this technique is so stinking mind blowing.
Okay, right here, we have a little highlight as well,
which we can darken.
It's all about how the light is hitting the face.
So this is micro dodge and burn.
Guys, remember, we are like at the pixel level
and we're just darkening certain pixels
that are next to brighter pixels.
So we're able to basically remove the blemishes
because we're able to darken certain pixels
of where the light is hitting it at a higher capacity.
So again, I'm just darkening that area here,
and you're able to make the illusion
of that blemish a lot less visible.
And then we can come over to our dodge skin
and we'll go and paint over the area that's darker
of this blemish.
And then if I turn all of my masks on and off,
that blemish disappears,
all because I brightened some pixels a little bit too much
and I darkened other pixels.
And that's how you remove a blemish
without even touching the clone stamp,
or anything similar to it.
Okay, so we've got our face here,
we've finished our dodge and burn, let's go ahead,
we're going to preview the before and the after
of all of the work that we've been able to do,
and it's looking really fabulous, very polished,
and we didn't step foot into Photoshop for any of the work.
This is all done within Lightroom.
Looks fantastic, looks realistic, looks great,
and I'm very happy with the results.