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Dodging and burning are terms used in photography for a technique used during the printing process to manipulate the exposure of a photographic print. Dodging reduces the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning gives extra exposure to areas of the print that he or she wishes to be darker.
Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two techniques. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on this very topic called The Print.
Many modern digital imaging programs such as Adobe Photoshop have "dodge" and "burn" tools that mimic the effect on digital images.
To burn-in a print, the print is first given normal exposure. Next, extra exposure is given to the area or areas that need to be darkened. A card or other opaque object is held between the enlarger lens and the photographic paper in such a way as to allow light to fall only on the portion of the scene to be darkened.
A card or other opaque object is held between the enlarger lens and the photographic paper in such a way as to block light from the portion of the scene to be lightened. Since the technique is used with a negative-to-positive process, reducing the amount of light results in a lighter image.