- Open a backlit portrait. Open the image titled
Hannah.psd in the Lesson 04 folder inside Lesson
Files-PsCS5 1on1. Shot especially for me by pho-
tographer Dustin Steller, this image of the photographer’s
sister appears in Figure 4-5. Of the shoot, Steller writes:
“I didn’t have any diffusers or reflectors with me because
it was a perfect slightly overcast day, but the clouds went
away right before the shoot. So I tried to use the drama
of the outdoor light to the best advantage.” As a result,
Hannah appears backlit, with too much shadow across
her otherwise cheerful and expressive face. - Click the dodge tool in the toolbox. A couple of icons
up from the T (see Figure 4-6 on the facing page), the
dodge tool is the first of Photoshop’s toning tools. To
get the dodge tool from the keyboard, press the O key. - Drag over the details you want to lighten. Press the right
bracket key to increase the diameter of the brush to
about 80 pixels and then paint away. I painted over all
the shaded areas in the face and neck. If possible, it’s
best to perform this initial edit in one big drag. Because
each stroke of the dodge tool compounds the one before
it, I achieved the best results by beginning my edits with
one big brushstroke and then adding multiple shorter
strokes as needed.
We start with the Photoshop editing tools that are specifically de-
signed to adjust tone, which are as follows:- The dodge tool lightens pixels as you paint over them.
- Conversely, the burn tool darkens pixels as you paint over them.
If you’re having problems keeping the dodge and burn tools
straight, think of toast—the more you burn it, the darker it gets. - The third entry in this arsenal is the sponge tool, which adjusts
the vibrancy of colors, either dulling them or making them
more vivid. - Lifted from Photoshop’s kid sibling Photoshop Elements, the
red eye tool does one thing well: removes red eye.
The following exercise explains how to use the tone-editing tools
along with the history brush to solve some common retouching prob-
lems. We’ll also take a look at how a filter designed for smoothing
out “noise” (random color variations) and JPEG artifacts can come
in handy in an unlikely situation.
Figure 4-5.
96 Lesson 4: Retouch, Heal, and Enhance