In photography, dodge and burn tools are used to affect the exposure of a design. In AVA, the Dodge and Burn Tool uses the shape of the selected brush, the pressure settings and the brush transparency to reproduce these effects. It can be a very useful tool to correct the colours or tones of motifs or areas at repeat joins where scanning has introduced differences in the design.

Select the dodge and burn tool in the Tools Palette or press O on the keyboard to automatically select this tool and open its setting window. The Type pop up bar displays the tool types of dodge, burn and sponge. These can also be selected directly in the tools window by clicking and holding on the tool. This way you can see which tool type is selected. You can also use your up and down arrow keys to change between types.

When either the dodge, burn or sponge tools are selected, a coating window will appear, in which you can quickly edit the settings:

• Dodge - lightens the area you paint over
• Burn - darkens the area you paint over
• Sponge - changes the saturation of the area you paint over
• Dodge 1st, Burn 2nd - will dodge the first layer you have activated and burn the second
• Burn 1st, Dodge 2nd - will burn the first layer you have activated and dodge the second

In dodge or burn mode, the range pop up bar gives the options highlights, mid-tones and shadows. This controls the tonal range which will be affected by either of the selected tools. If you use the Dodge 1st Burn 2nd or Burn 1st Dodge 2nd tool, you can activate two layers and apply the selected options respectively.

In sponge mode, the range pop up bar changes to saturate or desaturate. This changes the saturation of the area that is painted over. Sponge mode only works on RGB Images. 

Exposure allows you to control the amount of effect that the tool has on the design. For example, setting the exposure to 100% would have the maximum effect, whereas setting the exposure to 10% would have a minimal effect.

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