>>3190148For standard dodging and burning I suggest using curves rather than exposure. Here are the curves I recommend using. You fill the masks with black, then paint with white where you want to dodge or burn. This method leaves minimal color aberrations and gives you loads of control, but these curves don't allow for dramatic changes. You can always pull the highlight point and midpoint lower if you need more power.
>>3189864Really interesting question. The short answer is yes, you can do that in post. The longer answer is you have to be able to paint realistic shadows through understanding form/planes of the face and how light travels to do it realistically. If you try to do it without knowing how to paint realistically enough, it will look very digital. If you have decent understanding of rendering shadows, you can do it totally realistically in a way that will look like it was done in camera. Do you have an example image where you were hoping to create this effect? I'd love to give it a try.
The technical side on how to do this is:
- create a curve adjustment layer, bringing the white point all the way down, resulting in a black image.
- invert the mask, so it's filled with black - hiding the effect
- draw the shape of the shadow with the pen tool or lasso tool, then fill the selection with white.
- in the mask properties panel, experiment with the feather slider to get the overall shadow edge looking right
- reduce the opacity of the curve adjustment layer until you get the shadow density you want.
- from there you can use dodge and burn to refine the various edges of the shadow, tightening some of them up depending on how the planes of the face would interact with the shadow
