Pascal Baetens. Nude Photography. The Art and The Craft. 2007

ADJusting tonE 137

Adjusting tone

the density range of a photograph refers to the range of

tone from light to dark. if your images have a low density

range and are looking a little thin and flat you can boost the

overall contrast both in the darkroom and digitally. Dodging

and burning are time-honored darkroom practices in which

you lighten and darken particular areas by exposing them to

less or more light. You can do this with a special tool, or with

a piece of card. in the digital darkroom, you can simply use

the dodge and burn tool in your image editing software, but

a more refined way to work is by using adjustment layers,

selecting the area of the image that you want to work on

and lightening or darkening it using Levels.

Traditional black

and white

the small image shown left

looks rather flat and dull.

in the larger one above, the

image has been printed at

a higher contrast overall to

give it more punch and the

background around the model has been burned

in to create a vignetting effect that draws the

viewer’s attention to her face and body. Dodging

her eyes has made the whites more brilliant and

given them liveliness that animates her face.

to dodge or burn in small areas like this, cut

masks from black cardboard and glue them to

lengths of fine fuse wire that won’t leave lighter

stripes where they are held above the print.

Digital shadows

and highlights

to enhance contrast

in the image on the left,

i used selective color

to bring out highlights in

the curtains and darken

shadow areas. using

curves, i brought out the highlights on the

model’s body to emphasize its shape. the

light falling on her back and bottom is now

much more evident and you can clearly see

the graceful line of her spine which in the

original image was rather lost in shadow.

Portrait dodging

and burning

the low contrast of the

smaller image means that

the face lacks modeling

and her eyes are nearly

lost in shadow. in the image

above, the contrast of the

whole image has been boosted and now her

face is full of life. Her eyes have been dodged

to make them brighter, and the upper left side of

the image has been burned in to emphasize the

soft diagonals formed by her eyes and mouth.