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Dodging and Burning is a powerful post-processing technique that enables you to selectively brighten and darken specific areas within the frame without affecting the image as a whole. Today you’ll learn the best way to get the job done while avoiding three common mistakes that can spoil the edit in a hurry.

Photographer Andrea Livieri is an Italian pro specializing in landscape and travel imagery. He’s also an adept instructor who has spent the past decade helping others sharpen their photography skills. By following his step-by-step Dodge and Burn advice you’ll be able to imbue photos with “extra dimensionality and oomph.”

Livieri notes that many of photographers stumble with this technique, and thereby end up with unrealistic-looking results. The good news is that it’s just as easy to do things properly as it is to make the three “critical” errors that you’ll see how to fix and avoid. Livieri also explains why global adjustments rarely produce optimum results.

The localized adjustments you’ll learn today, on the other hand, are narrowly applied just where they’re needed to add contrast, balance out tones, and correct highlights that are too dark, shadows that are too bright, and everything else in between. Much of this involves perfecting exposure, but colors can also be improved during the Dodge and Burn process.

So what are the three specific mistakes people make when employing these techniques? One is failing to consider the direction and intensity of light, another is ignoring unwanted color shifts, and the third is a noticeable loss of local contrast. We’ll let Livieri illustrate how these errors affect your images and walk you through a simple and effective solution for each.

Livieri explains the necessary Lightroom tools and all the appropriate settings for quickly mastering these various tasks. We’re pretty sure that and by the time you’re done watching this video you’ll want to add Dodging and Burning to your Lightroom bag of tricks.