ABSTRACT
‘Dodging and burning’ is a phrase borrowed from the conventional wet film darkroom. It means local exposure control change. The Dodge and Burn tool icons in Photoshop mimic the wet darkroom wire-handled ‘dodger’ and the shape amateur photographers commonly hold their hand in to burn in a section of a print. The Dodge and Burn tools are much less of a problem with black-and-white digital images than with colour, where their use can cause unwanted hue shifts. These give much greater control and do not alter the original black-and-white image. These techniques require image-editing software with layering. High-dynamic range (HDR) imagery pushes the ability of the digital medium to handle wide dynamic range images even further than its comfortable seven stops. Some photographers who have stayed with film will use dark and light scanner exposure settings to wring the very last drop of dynamic range from their negatives, running the resulting files through HDR merge software.
