poster for the 1939 movie ‘Dodge City’, Kansas
Toronto. … or burn! Photographers of a certain age will recognize these two words as darkroom techniques to compensate for faulty camera exposure, wrong paper grade, or to add some pizzazz to a print. There is a video here that covers basic darkroom technique for dodging and burning.
The idea behind burning is to locally increase contrast by adjusting the H&D curve. More light in a shadow area can darken the shadow and bring out details, if any exist.
Similarly, holding back light by dodging a highlight area can lighten the area and bring out detail. If there is no detail, the highlight area is just monotone and looks a bit phoney.
Modern digital images can be similarly adjusted using Photoshop, Affinity Photo, or similar image editing software to tweak the H&D curve. Specific tools and layers can also help.
Note: The title of this post is based on a c1939 movie called ‘Dodge City‘.
