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Burning

Photopedia

18 October 2007 15:02

Burning is the reverse of the dodging technique. In the case of burning-in a print, the print is first given an exposure that produces a range of normal tones, before extra exposure is given to the area or areas that need to be darkened (again, it is assumed that the technique is being used with a negative-to-positive process, therefore increasing the amount of light results in that part of the image having a darker tone).

Typically, a piece of card or other opaque material, with a small hole cut in it, is held between the lens of the enlarger and the photographic paper in such a way as to block the light from the printing paper except the area(s) that requires burning-in.

To increase the subtlety of the technique, and prevent any obvious edge appearing around the burned-in area, the opaque material can be moved slightly during the exposure, to produce a graduated, feathered effect. 

Most digital imaging software applications such as Adobe Photoshop have "burning" tool that emulates the effect of the burning-in technique on a digital image.