The Dodge Tool

OK, so .... normalcy is overrated ... I'm sticking with being a camera / Photoshop nut until my husband comes home. He is on a plane headed back to the cannibals right now and I am not happy about it. Sorry.

Our lesson for today? The 'Dodge' tool. Which why the damn geniuses at Photoshop couldn't just call the the 'Lighten' tool, I have no idea ...

This photo scrolled on my never-ending slide show and I thought 'This just won't do ... I know how to use the Dodge Tool now!'. Stole it off my slide show, saved it to a temporary Photoshop folder and went to work.

Original photo:

They were at Vigeland (vee-ga-lan) Park in Norway looking at the 212 bronze and granite sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland. This was Jordan and Kristian - Jordan was Ryan's best friend and when we offered to fly him over - the first time his parents were a bit concerned, so came with his older brother. We had a thoroughly wonderful time with them. They were all good sports and took the 70-some odd kilometer bike ride to Flåm (flowm). I had taken them to the park because it is very famous, but forgetting that the sculptures are all nude. Jordan was mortified and refused to take any photos. All of a sudden, 'click' I looked over at him, and he shrugged his shoulders "That one has clothes on" ... and sure enough - one way up on a pole I had never noticed was completely dressed! He looks OK here though - so we didn't scar him too much!

I really wanted to be able to see their faces. I lightened the photo, gave it a bit of a color boost, but the faces were still hidden:

So, I got out the trusty 'Dodge Tool' - hidden in a stack: The Dodge Tool, the Burn Tool, and the Sponge Tool. It is a brush - you select all the things you would for a brush, the size, shape, the feathering, the opacity, etc. I just did a 5 second quick and dirty sweep over their faces and lightened just the faces up here. Helps the photo tremendously, since that is what I wanted to see when I framed the shot.

Quick note on the Burn tool. It at least sounds more like what it does. It is the opposite of the Dodge Tool and darkens where you sweep the brush. I used the Burn Tool to darken that cute church there on the right. I didn't like how it had become lighter ...

So - quick and dirty job (if I were actually going to save it, I would have spent more than 10 seconds on it ...).

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And, since Gary called me a 'chicken', I thought I would post that I got brave and opened my 'Mormon Row' canvas prints. He will check my blog upon landing - don't know if he will call me - so posting here ...

They look great! I get nervous when I blow a picture up, but I see absolutely no graininess, pixelating, nothing but clear, crisp photo on canvas! Next art project is moving along nicely ...

Off to photo land to play and forget ....