Rein in bright areas and boost shadows selectively

1 The lower-right corner of this image is too bright – it pulls your eye away from the colourful leaves. Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools aren’t flexible enough; the changes aren’t easily editable. 2 Instead, create a Curves Adjustment Layer and pull the midpoint of the curve up and left to lighten (dodge), or down and right to darken (burn). Press Cmd-I/Ctrl-I to invert the layer mask. 3 Select the Brush tool and pick a large, soft-edged brush. Set the foreground colour to white, with opacity at 100%. Paint over the portion of the image to change – here I darkened the lower-right portion.