Artistic Garlic and Ginger

Imagine that garlic and ginger are your favourite spices.  You love them so much, you use them in everything.  You use both when you make spaghetti and then again when you make pumpkin pie.  In fact, you like them so much that you use ten whole cloves of garlic and two whole cups of ginger.  Every time.  In both spaghetti and pumpkin pie.

Yah, that'd be pretty disgusting!  Nobody would want to eat at your house!

Now, imagine that this became a pretty popular trend, this use of ten cloves of garlic and two cups of ginger in ever dish.  It became so popular that culinary schools starting teaching their students that garlic and ginger were horrible and never to be used in cooking.  Ever!  In fact, they started publishing memoirs and writing letters to the editor to that effect.  Now imagine that you stumbled across one of these writings, read it, and thought, "Hmmm.  Maybe they're right.  Maybe garlic and ginger are bad.  Maybe I should use other things like rosemary and thyme for spaghetti and nutmeg and clove for pumpkin pie and not mix the two.  And maybe I should use smaller amounts, like a teaspoon or so."

This would be a huge improvement, right?  You might even be able to throw a successful party.

However, leaving out garlic in your spaghetti and ginger in your pumpkin pie is overcorrection.  Overcorrection is "correction beyond what is needed or customary, especially when leading to error" (dictionary.reference.com).  Therefore, you're still wrong!  Spaghetti needs a little garlic and pumpkin pie needs a little ginger.


So it has been with the burn and dodge tools in Photoshop.  (I see you cringing over there.)  It's never good to use ten whole cloves of burn and two whole cups of dodge in any painting recipe, but these are two very legitimate spices.  If you leave them out altogether, not only are you handicapping yourself, but also you're leaving out a key spice in your artistic spaghetti and pumpkin pie.  Use the tools you have for their intended uses when they are needed.  Don't overuse them, but don't underuse them, either.  Burn and dodge are your friends...when used sparingly in the right places.

~D~