Burn tool??? :o

[word]

Hey there people, I come to you with a question! Could someone tell me what exactly is the burn tool for cs2/cs3, what's it do to an image?
Any help is greatly appreciated n__n

[Soquili]

The Burn Tool is to selectively darken an area of your image. Increase expose in photographic terms.

[steve.ledger]

Would darken not result in an effect of a decrease in exposure Bill?


Welcome to TG word,

[Soquili]

Steve, not darken as in make black but to increase saturation.

My darkroom experience over rides my computer graphic experience when talking about dodging and burning. In the dark room the paper is white and so using a burn tool in the dark room you make the area darker (more saturated). A dodge tool does the opposite where you are reducing the amount of light from the enlarger that illuminates the paper, making it lighter.

In a dark room a burn tool is usually a large card stock rectangle with a pin hole, a dodge tool is a stiff wire with a round circle of card stock taped or clued to the wire.

Maybe I spoke too soon, I remember my first attempts to burn in an area of a black and white photo. It did become very black

[steve.ledger]

So we're talking about different exposures. In photographic terms, an increase in exposure results in more light entering the camera and creating a much brighter image (over-exposed) rather than more saturation. This is how I understand Photoshop users use the D&B tools. In PS, the 'Sponge' tool increases/decreases saturation.
I understand your darkroom analogy to mean more exposue to the chemicals and other post processes?

[Soquili]

The burn and dodge tools are dark room accessories. In the dark room you have more latitude in your exposure when working with black and white. Colour development in a dark room (custom processing) is more expensive and more difficult to perform. The colour photo paper is extremely sensitive to most wavelengths of light and the exposure times are very short. Too short for burning and dodging to be done manually. That is one of the best things about Photoshop, it made working on colour prints by burning and dodging as easy as it is in a dark room for black and white photography.

For black and white a typical custom print follows along the following steps:

You put the frame you want to print into the enlarger.
Focus the lens of the enlarger and set the aperature you want.
You then make a test sheet by covering all but 1/10th of a sheet of photo paper. Set the enlarger's timer for 1/10th of a second. Allow the exposure to occur.
Slide your cover sheet so that another 1/10th of the photo paper is exposed and expose the paper again.
Repeat until you have exposed the last 1/10th of the photo paper.

The first 1/10th of the paper exposed will have 1 second total exposure. You will have 10 exposure increments across the photo paper. Place your test sheet of photo paper in the developer for the recommend time for the temperature of the developer. Use the recommended times for rinse, fix, then wash.

Allow the paper to dry and take it out into a fully lighted room or sunlight. Decide which section of the paper has the saturation and contrast you are after.

You then return to the dark room and put a fresh sheet of photo paper down, set the timer for the time your test sheet determined was your favorite. Expose, develop, rinse, fix, and wash then dry. Take this test print out into normal light and determine if some area needs to be burned (increase exposure) or dodged (decrease exposure).

Remember in a dark room with photo paper your increased exposure makes darker (more saturated and decreased contrast) and the decreased exposure makes lighter (weaker saturation and decreased contrast).