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March 10th, 2009 by Calvin Jung
Archive for March, 2009
Tools Often Overlooked – The Burn, Dodge, and Sponge Tools
March 1st, 2009 by Calvin Jung
This past weekend I took a trip to Hemet with a few friends to shoot some downhill mountain bikers. This was quite a different experience for me as it introduced me to an entirely new realm of photography. Unlike automotive photography, what I’m accustomed to, action sports like downhill mountain biking require you to be on your toes at all times as you only get one chance. And that one chance isn’t nearly enough for a novice like myself. Luckily, there were several riders with us and I was able to practice shooting each rider once through each section of the “course.” Unfortnately, I wasn’t able to get great shots of all the riders, but I will get more next time!
Sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you gotta do to get those outrageous angles. Here is a somewhat behind the scenes picture of me in action:
Picture courtesy of Brandon Loomis of Air-2-Flat Photos, the same friend that brought me along with him to his hometown, Hemet, to capture these fearless downhill riders!
Beginners often overlook the Burn and Dodge tools in Photoshop. The Burn tool darkens specified areas of an image while the Dodge tool lightens them. These two tools are very useful to help fix over-/under-exposed areas. The Sponge tool is used to control the level of saturation (of colors) in specified areas of an image. The advantage of these tools is that you do not have to apply the effects to the entire image. This is convenient when you have just a small portion of an image that is blown (overexposed) or underexposed.
The following image was taken at the second “shooting” location of the course. I was still trying to get the settings down but was on somewhat of a time constraint as I didn’t want to hold the riders up. As a result the image was overexposed. Thank goodness for post processing!
The original image prior to any processing in ACR or Photoshop:
In Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), I adjusted the white balance, exposure, clarity, vibrance, and saturation for the backdrop, knowing that I could “fix” or “recover” the rider later in Photoshop.
After being processed in ACR:
Here I used the Burn tool to darken his t-shirt. As you can see above, there is hardly any detail in his t-shirt because it is blown, or overexposed. I also applied it lightly to his skin to give it a bit more contrast. I used the Dodge tool to light up his pants and the bike’s tires, again, to offer more detail. The Sponge tool was used in small various areas of the image to give a little more saturation.
After the Burn, Dodge, and Sponge tools were applied in Photoshop:
After 10 too many double cheeseburgers, 6 hot dogs, 2 orders of chili cheese fries, a large chocolate milk shake and a stick of butter:
And here is another shot I messed around with of another rider:
The rest of the images from this shoot can be found in the Gallery portion of this site – Downhill Freestyling.
http://photosbycalvin.com/gallery/?album=Downhill_Freestyling