Brightening eyes with the Dodge tool
By Alexia Naidoo
Corel® Painter™ X has a new image enhancement tool that makes it easier than ever to brighten photos. The Dodge tool lets you lighten, or overexpose, specific areas of an image. This can help you improve a dark photograph, add interesting effects, or prepare a portrait for digital painting.
In particular, the eyes in a photo may need brightening before the portrait is painted. The Dodge tool is perfect for the job. It lets you lighten the irises and the whites of the eyes so that they remain prominent after you paint.
Start with a photo that you would like to transform into a painting.
The original image
Although the subject's eyes look fine in the photo, you can see that they get lost in the shadows after the painting process.
The eyes in the digital painting are too dark.
To avoid this problem, you can use the Dodge tool to brighten the eyes.
1. Choose the Dodge tool 
from the toolbox.
On the property bar, move the Size slider, or type a value in the Size box, to adjust the size of the tool. Adjust the size so that you can work easily in the eye area.
Move the Opacity slider, or type a value in the Opacity box, to adjust the strength of the Dodge tool. Experiment with the opacity to achieve the brightness you want.
2. Drag the brush in the image to apply the effect.
Apply the Dodge tool to the eyes.
For this image, the eyes needed to be overexposed to produce a good result from the painting technique. In other words, you need to do more dodging than if you were just touching up a photo where the eyes are a bit too dark.
The image after dodging.
You can see how great the eyes look in the finished painting. While still looking very natural, they are more visible than they would have been.
The painted image.