Dodge and Burn in Lightroom

Portraits just love dodge and burn. And the best way to do this is in Photoshop. But when you don't have Photoshop (or Photoshop scares you), you can also do it in Lightroom. 

Summarizing one can say that dodge and burn is darkening the darks and lightening the lights. In Lightroom, dodging and burning can be done using the shadows and the highlights. 

Here's how to get started: 
Open your image and grab a  brush. Reset it and lower the shadows to 0 and drop the black (to let's say -20). Paint over the dark parts of the image and resize your 100% feathered brush a lot of times to build up the effect. Be sure the flow of your brush is around 15.

Paint over the light parts using a brush that has +100 highligths and +20 whites. Resize your brush when you paint to build up the effect. That's all there is to it. 

You do get some nice results in Lightroom, but I still highly prefer Photoshop for a really decent dodge and burn portrait. 

Here is my start image (from pixabay)

After painting with a brush in Lightroom we've got this.

I also added some clarity in his face using a brush.

Here is the effect with a quick edit in Photoshop.

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