Limit the Dodge & Burn tool for multiple passes of an area

[sirhawkeye64]

Is there a way to limit the Doge and Burn tools so that you can have a "max" amount of burning/lightening, regardless of how many passes you may make over an area? By default, it continues to lighten or darken the area as you continue to move over the area. In some cases, I will accidently "paint" over the same area more than once only to have it continue to lighten that area (this happens more when I'm working with large areas, such as a wall or a larger object).

Can you set this maximum brightness or darkness that the Dodge and Burn tool use?

 

[sankos]

Personally, I'd use the D/B tool only to perfect masks which contain shades of grey, otherwise I prefer the following: darkening or lightening Curves/Levels adjustment layer set to Luminosity blending, with a black mask. Then I can control the upper threshold of the white brush with its Opacity, and the speed of removing the mask with Flow. See here. The D/B has a useful Range setting, but you can get it with the Curves method by using the Blend If layer setting.

--
Marcin

 

[sabrina81]

I prefer the following: darkening or lightening Curves/Levels adjustment layer set to Luminosity blending, with a black mask. Then I can control the upper threshold of the white brush with its Opacity, and the speed of removing the mask with Flow.

This, or a blank layer in either Soft Light or Overlay blend mode. Then you can limit the amount of dodge/burn by painting with various shades of gray instead of pure white/black. This and the curves/levels technique have the additional advantage of being nondestructive.

 

[Simion1]

You could try using curve adjustment layers instead. See from 5:20 in the below video.

 

[sankos]

I prefer the following: darkening or lightening Curves/Levels adjustment layer set to Luminosity blending, with a black mask. Then I can control the upper threshold of the white brush with its Opacity, and the speed of removing the mask with Flow.

This, or a blank layer in either Soft Light or Overlay blend mode. Then you can limit the amount of dodge/burn by painting with various shades of gray instead of pure white/black. This and the curves/levels technique have the additional advantage of being nondestructive.

I prefer Curves/Levels set to Luminosity so that I can avoid the Saturation shifts when doing D/B with the Overlay/Soft light blending. But both are valid techniques. And you can further limit the dodging/burning to various luminosity ranges (e.g. highlights only) by using the parametric Blend If command, thus mimicking the D/B tool's setting of Range, but with more control. Or you can paint through a Luminosity selection.

--
Marcin

 

[WW Webster]

Is there a way to limit the Doge and Burn tools so that you can have a "max" amount of burning/lightening, regardless of how many passes you may make over an area?

Move the Flow setting/slider for the adjustment brush to its maximum value - "100" in Lightroom.

 

[Sailor Blue]

Dodge and burn used to be very bad, introducing color changes so a different technique was used. You might try it.

Create a new solid color layer that is filled with gray and set the blend mode to Soft Light.

Use either a white or black brush to paint on the gray layer. Set the Opacity to 100% and the flow to about 2%-5% and you can paint over and over without having to restart the brush for each stroke. The effect is very much like running a pencil over and over an area on a sheet of paper, making the area darker and darker.

The amount you lighten or darken the gray layer will control how much you lighten or darken the image.

The Opacity controls the maximum effect, the Flow controls how much the effect is applied with each stroke over an area.

You can set the Opacity to less than 100% to control the maximum amount you can dodge or burn.

You can restart the brush as many times as you want for new areas or to touch up an area you have already finished.

If you make a mistake switch the color of the brush and fix the error.

The keyboard shortcut to set the foreground and background colors to black and white is "D". To switch the colors use the keyboard shortcut, "X".