Dodge, Burn,
and Sponge Tools
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
These tools are known as
the toning tools and that should help you remember the keyboard shortcut of O.
As usual, you can toggle between the three by pressing Shift-O.
- Dodge - Lightens
pixels where you paint.
- Burn - Darkens pixels
where you paint.
- Sponge - Saturates or
desaturates the pixels where you paint.
The dodge and burn tools
work best on grayscale images. On color image the dodge tool will wash out color
and details, the burn tool will just turn the area black or sunburned-looking.
In a grayscale image, these tools are used to lighten shadows or overexposed
areas and to darken underexposed areas. They have a unique option for "range"
with choices of highlights, midtones, and shadows.
- When set to
highlights, only the lightest areas are affected.
- When set to shadows,
only the darkest areas are affected.
- When set to midtones,
only the middle tones are affected.
They also have an exposure
option which controls how intense the effect is. Generally you want to use both
of these tools with a fairly low exposure. You will probably rarely bring it
over 25%.
In grayscale images, one
example where the dodge tool is useful would be for removing dark shadows from
under a person's eyes. An example where the burn tool would be useful would be
to reduce the shine on a persons face from light reflecting off it. In addition
to working with grayscale images, dodge and burn can also be useful for adding
highlights and shadows on cartoon-style drawings and artwork.
The sponge tool allows you
to adjust the color saturation where you paint. It has two modes: desaturate and
saturate. The pressure option controls how strong the effect is applied.
- Desaturate mode dulls
the colors, turning them gray.
- Saturate mode
intensifies the color, making them brighter.
If you have an image that
was converted from CMYK mode to RGB mode, you will generally find the colors are
somewhat dull and washed out. You can use the sponge tool in saturate mode to
brighten them up. Conversely, when you're working on an image in RGB mode that
is eventually going to be converted to CMYK, you can watch for out-of-gamut
colors and use the sponge tool in desaturate mode to bring those colors back
into the CMYK gamut. In desaturate mode, the sponge tool is also useful for
toning down colors in the background of an image when you want to make a
foreground object stand out, or for giving a color photo a vintage, colorized
appearance.
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