Skip to content For all of us who have been using Photoshop for quite some time now may or may not know what our very own Burn tool is for. In the series of our tutorials in Photoshop, we have discussed the different tools in the tool bar with a slight description on what it does. In this tutorial, you will know what the burn tool is, why it is there, and how you can use it to your advantage.
What is the Burn Tool?
In previous versions of Photoshop, you do not have an easy access to both Dodge and Burn tools because you have to go through a lot of stuff (creating special layers, blend modes, etc.) but now, Photoshop finally made it. From its term, burn, the burn tool is a feature in Photoshop to selectively darken any area of your image. While the Dodge tool is its counterpart, the Burn Tool is an effective way to change the color or to darken some specific points in your image.
While it is selected, you will see different options at the top bar which controls how the Burn Tool behaves.
- Midtones – Selecting Midtones changes the middle range of grays.
- Shadows – Selecting Shadows changes the darkest areas of your image.
- Highlights – And selecting Highlights changes the lightest points of your image.
The Exposure option lets you specify how much exposure the Burn Tool will do to your image. For example, setting the exposure to somewhat less than 15% gives you a minimal change to the parts that you want to darken.
For the Burn Tool, it is best to use either Midtones or Shadows because the Highlights is best when you enable the Dodge Tool; to lighten the image.