DODGING AND BURNING
The healing brush's value is the ease with which lots of gross imperfections can be brought under control without a loss of skin texture. But if you want to take that next step to flawless skin, you will need to dodge and burn—again, and again and again.

With the healing brush i will try to cover as many bases as possible before moving on. Dodging and burning is never finished. Sometimes the problems that it has to address don't become obvious until other steps have been completed. A typical work flow might look something this:

Healing Brush
Contrast move
Dodge/burn
Color move
Dodge/burn
HIRALOAM
Dodge/burn
Healing Brush
Dodge/burn
Smoothing
Dodge/burn
Add glow
Dodge/burn
Sharpen
Dodge/Burn
Have lunch
Dodge/burn

You get the idea.

A quick search of any number of Photoshop forums will turn up a variety of approaches to this task. I'll be honest, I haven't tried most of them; I found the version I like and it's never let me down. If you wish to embellish or modify this technique, by all means, do so.

None, by the way, involve actually using the Dodge/Burn tools on the image pixels themselves. Don't even think about that. They all involve placing dark and light tones in a layer or layers above the image with the intention of countering unwanted variations in the lights and darks. Usually, this layer will be in Hard Light, Overlay or Soft Light mode. All three modes interact with the underlying pixels to create lighten or darken effects.

In all three modes, 50% gray has no effect at all. Hard Light and Overlay will screen tones lighter than 50% against the underlying pixels, and multiply tones that are darker. With Overlay, the effect diminishes as the underlying pixels approach white and black, concentrating the effect in the quarter tones and three-quarter tones. A layer filled with white in Overlay Mode will bleach out most of the image, but the shadow detail will be retained. Hard Light mode affects the highlight and shadow detail as well and as a result, produces a much stronger effect. To be honest, I'm not sure what Soft Light does. It's similar to Overlay in that highlights and shadows are retained, but the effect is, well, softer. The best way to see the difference is to place a layer above any image you choose, fill it alternately with white and black in each of the three modes.

DODGING AND BURNING
The healing brush's value is the ease with which lots of gross imperfections can be brought under control without a loss of skin texture. But if you want to take that next step to flawless skin, you will need to dodge and burn—again, and again and again.

With the healing brush i will try to cover as many bases as possible before moving on. Dodging and burning is never finished. Sometimes the problems that it has to address don't become obvious until other steps have been completed. A typical work flow might look something this:

Healing Brush
Contrast move
Dodge/burn
Color move
Dodge/burn
HIRALOAM
Dodge/burn
Healing Brush
Dodge/burn
Smoothing
Dodge/burn
Add glow
Dodge/burn
Sharpen
Dodge/Burn
Have lunch
Dodge/burn

You get the idea.

A quick search of any number of Photoshop forums will turn up a variety of approaches to this task. I'll be honest, I haven't tried most of them; I found the version I like and it's never let me down. If you wish to embellish or modify this technique, by all means, do so.

None, by the way, involve actually using the Dodge/Burn tools on the image pixels themselves. Don't even think about that. They all involve placing dark and light tones in a layer or layers above the image with the intention of countering unwanted variations in the lights and darks. Usually, this layer will be in Hard Light, Overlay or Soft Light mode. All three modes interact with the underlying pixels to create lighten or darken effects.

In all three modes, 50% gray has no effect at all. Hard Light and Overlay will screen tones lighter than 50% against the underlying pixels, and multiply tones that are darker. With Overlay, the effect diminishes as the underlying pixels approach white and black, concentrating the effect in the quarter tones and three-quarter tones. A layer filled with white in Overlay Mode will bleach out most of the image, but the shadow detail will be retained. Hard Light mode affects the highlight and shadow detail as well and as a result, produces a much stronger effect. To be honest, I'm not sure what Soft Light does. It's similar to Overlay in that highlights and shadows are retained, but the effect is, well, softer. The best way to see the difference is to place a layer above any image you choose, fill it alternately with white and black in each of the three modes.