Dodge and Burn

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Quick Mask
Adjusting Contrast
Using Curves
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Rubberstamping
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Sharpening
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Color

By selectively applying the Burn tool, set to Shadows to the dark edges of the embossing, and the Dodge tool set to Highlights to the bright highlights, I could pick up the areas I wanted to emphasize. See the results at the bottom of the page.
     Now that I’ve put this embossed thing in here, I’ll have to tell you how to do it, won’t I. Here is a very brief, step-by-step outline.

1. Open your image. Make the Background layer active. Choose the Type tool. In its options bar, choose the Type mask option (it’s the one in a dotted outline). If you like, after typing your text, click the Warp button and try to match the type to your images shape, as I did, in this case.
2. When you’re happy with your text, click the big check mark on the options bar to accept the text selection outline. If you want to, at this point you can choose Select > Transform Selection to rotate, scale, or otherwise manipulate the selection outline to match the contours of your image. You have to do this before the next step, though.
3. Choose Layer > New > Layer via Copy. This places a copy of the type selection outline, and its image contents from the Background layer, onto a new layer.
4. With the new layer selected, click the Layer Styles button at the bottom of the Layers palette and apply an effect.

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If you would like to download a zipped pdf file of this tutorial, please click on the link below, and save it to your hard drive.
Dodge and Burn pdf
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Copyright © 2002 by Jay Arraich.
All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright ©2002 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com