- Bring up the History panel. If the History panel isn’t already
on screen, choose Window→History. As you saw in the previ-
ous lesson, the History panel tracks the most recent changes
you made to an image, thus permitting you to step back to one
of several previous states. As if that’s not enough, you can paint
back portions of a previous state using the history brush.
PeaRl Of WISDOm
It’s this last option that makes the History panel so useful when retouching
an image. After painting in an edit effect, you can turn around and erase
portions of it with the history brush—provided, that is, that you manage
your history states properly. As we saw in the preceding lesson, Photoshop
tracks the last 20 operations. But as Figure 4-8 shows, it’s easy to click and
drag more than 20 times with the dodge tool without being aware of it.
And once a state gets bumped off the History list, you can’t restore it. Of
course, you could raise the number of history states, but you’d have to do so
in advance of painting your first brushstroke, and it can dramatically slow
down Photoshop when applying large-scale adjustments. A much better
practice is to create a snapshot that can be used as a source for the history
brush (which we’ll use in the next step).- Create a snapshot of the current state. Press the Alt (or Op-
tion) key and click the camera icon ( ) at the bottom of the
History panel, labeled in Figure 4-8. In the New Snapshot
dialog box, name the new snapshot “Dodged Image” and click
the OK button. - Select the burn tool in the toolbox. Click and hold the dodge
tool icon to display a flyout menu, and then choose the little
hand icon that represents the burn tool, as in Figure 4-9. Or
if you prefer, press Alt (or Option) and click the dodge icon to
advance to the next tool. Or just press the O key (or Shift+O if
you skipped the Preface). - Reduce the Exposure value to 30 percent. Located in the op-
tions bar, the Exposure value controls the intensity of edits
applied by the burn tool. In my experience, the default value
of 50 percent is too extreme for most editing work. Press the 3
key to take the value to 30 percent. - Drag over the image details you want to darken. Armed with
a 100-pixel brush, I painted independent brushstrokes over the
forehead, the bridge of her nose, the highlight in the left ear
(her right), and the tiny wedge of a highlight above the lip. I
also painted repeatedly over the cheeks, the top of the forehead,
and the highlight on the chin. With a larger brush, I painted the
base of the neck, both arms, and portions of the dress.
Figure 4-8.Figure 4-9.98 Lesson 4: Retouch, Heal, and Enhance