B&W Effects (Adaptive Exposure Masking)

Hey peeps, Happy Hogmany!!

So I recently acquired Clean 3, realise it has no masking tool, so it’s best to use that plugin in conjunction with PS to do masking stuff, cool, no worries.

I have B&W Effects Plugin also, I like the adaptive exposure feature, kinda punchy, good for portraits etc, I kinda want the background non adaptive tho, for that extra punch effect of the subject. I could do the same technique that Clean 3 requires i.e. use B&W Effects and fire up in PS.
However, B&W effects actually has a masking tool, I use it to bring colour back etc, however I cannot figure out (or understand) what things like dodge, burn and stuff really does. I can’t seem to (for example) use a masking brush in B&W Effects to remove adaptive exposure from part of the picture. Is this at all possible from within B&W Effects, or is this task another PS requirement?

TIA!

Ed

  • Dodge is to Lighten
  • Burn is to darken
  • Detail, Smooth and Color are self explanatory

You wont simply be able to remove Adaptive Exposure by using masking in the host application, masking will adjust all of the effect.

Again you can try adjusting the effect (overall) by using the Transparency in the Finishing Touches panel.

Thanks, yeh seems to be something I need to do in PS afterwards. Just double checking.

The terms ‘burn’ and ‘dodge’ where do they originate from? I could tell when trying them out that’s what they were doing, I wondered if they were also doing something else subtly that I could not easily detect. Do other softwares also use burn and dodge also to meaning lighten and darken?

All software would use that terminology unless they use Darken/Lighten … originated from the darkroom.

Direct quote: “In a darkroom print from a film negative, dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker”

Nice, thanks!