burning, dodging

“burning” is the darkening of select areas of a photo

“dodging” is the brightening of select areas of a photo

Neither burning nor dodging is ever necessary in a TTG photograph.

• Any photograph that is reasonably well exposed (or, if misexposed, that has its overall brightness corrected after the exposure) will have brightness relationships that meet P7 without burning or dodging needed.

• Anyone who takes a normal photograph using a smartphone’s automatic settings will not need to do any burning or dodging to meet P7.

Then why is burning or dodging performed?

Respected news agencies have been “burning” and “dodging” photographs for more than a century, in both the film and the digital eras, to compensate for photographs’ limited dynamic range compared to the human eye.

Burning and dodging can reveal pictorial information that would not be visible if they were not performed, a result that is often desired by news organizations.

But burning and dodging can also be used to obscure pictorial information and the result may be disqualified by P7; see the highlight/shadow page for details.