After years of my hit and miss approach to dodging and burning in the darkroom I can still remember my reaction to seeing Photoshop Elements performing real-time lightening and darkening You are kidding! . Not only could I paint in light and dark areas on my picture using a soft-edged brush, I could also vary the strength of the effect and the size of the brush used for application. In addition, I could choose to alter shadow, midtones or highlights separately and undo my actions with a single keystroke. All this flexibility and with the lights on as well!

I would think that most new users to Photoshop Elements would experience much of the same excitement as I did when they first discover the Dodge and Burn-in tools. For the majority of simple enhancement tasks a few quick strokes of these tools will provide plenty of control over your picture s tones, but there are occasions when you need a little more flexibility. I use the following techniques to provide a little more customization to my dodging and burning-in in my work.

Input and output sliders >>
(a) Black, midtone and white Input sliders.
(b) Black and white Output sliders.