5.10. Dodge or Burn

The Dodge or Burn tool uses the current brush to lighten or darken the colors in your image. The mode will determine which type of pixels are affected.

Activate Tool

  • The Dodge or Burn Tool can be called in the following order, from the image-menu: Tools/ Paint Tools/DodgeBurn .

  • The Tool can also be called by clicking the tool icon:

Key modifiers (Defaults)

Shortcut

The key combination Ctrl-D will change the active tool to Dodge or Burn tool.

Ctrl

Ctrl toggles between dodge or burn types. The type will remain switched until Ctrl is released.

Shift

Shift places the Dodge or Burn tool into straight line mode. Holding Shift while clicking Button1 will Dodge or Burn in a straight line. Consecutive clicks will continue Dodge or Burn in straight lines that originate from the end of the last line.

Options

Overview

The available tool options for the Dodge or Burn Tool can be accessed by double clicking the Dodge or Burn Tool icon.

Opacity

The Opacity slider sets the transparency level for the operation. A higher opacity setting results in a more opaque render and a lower setting results in a more transparent one.

Brush

Indicates the active brush. Clicking on the brush icon opens the brush selection dialog.

Hard Edge

By default the Convolver softens the edges of an area blurred or sharpened. The Hard Edge toggle changes this behavior. Any area convolved while this option is active will be convolved with no softening of the edge of the brush used.

Pressure Sensitivity

The Pressure Sensitivity section sets whether hardness, rate, or size will be affected by pressure for input devices that support this option.

Fade Out

This option causes a transition to the background over a distance set by the Length field.

Type

The dodge effect lightens colors.

The burn effect darkens colors.

Mode

There are three modes:

  • Shadows restricts the effect to transparent pixels.

  • Midtones restricts the effect to pixels of average tone.

  • Highlights restricts the effect to dark pixels.