The Burn, Dodge, and Sponge Tools
The Burn, Dodge, and Sponge Tools are probably the best unsung heroes of Elements. Why do I write that? Simple: they are easy to use and are very effective.
The Burn and Dodge tools are electronic representations of what I did for years in a black and white printing lab. Burning in a photo was a term that meant that part of a print needed to be darker than the rest of it. I'd make up a cardboard mask with a hole in it and, after the base exposure was done, I'd continue to expose the print—but only the bits of it that I needed to go darker—by holding the cardboard mask between the enlarger lamp and the photo paper. By gently moving the card mask so that the additional exposure only fell onto the area that I wanted to go darker, I could manipulate the global exposure so that it became a custom exposure. The Dodge tool was a hand-cut bit of card taped to some wire and held between an enlarger lamp and paper to stop light getting to...
