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By Root 1740 0

of the pixels in the image and likewise the lightening effect will be distributed such that all the pixels get the lightening treatment and not just the dark pixels. The optimum setting is always dependent on the image content and the pixel area size of the dark or light regions in the image. The optimum pixel Radius width should therefore be about half that amount or less. In practice you don't have to measure the pixel width of the light and dark areas in an image to work this out. Just be aware that after you have established the Amount and Tonal Width settings you should adjust the Radius setting and make it larger or smaller according to how large the dark or light areas are. There will be a ‘sweet spot’ where the Shadows/Highlights correction is just right.

HDR Toning adjustment

Photoshop CS5 now also offers an HDR Toning adjustment from the Image Adjustments menu. This is described on pages 402–403 and provides an alternative approach to applying Shadows/Highlights type image adjustments.

As you make an adjustment to the Radius setting you will sometimes notice a soft halo appearing around sharp areas of contrast between dark and light areas. This is a natural consequence of the Radius function and is most noticeable when you apply large Amount corrections. Aim for a Radius setting where the halo is least noticeable or apply a Fade… adjustment after applying the Shadows/Highlights adjustment. If I am really concerned with avoiding halos, I sometimes use the history brush to selectively paint in a Shadows/Highlights adjustment.

1.

In this photograph there were a lot of dark shadows in the trees. With a little help from the Shadows/Highlights adjustment it is possible to bring out more detail in the shadows, but without degrading the overall contrast.

2.

I went to the Image menu and chose Adjustments Shadows/Highlights. I set the Amount to 55% and raised the Tonal Width to 45%. The Radius adjustment was now crucial because this determined the distribution width of the Shadows/Highlights adjustment. As you can see in this step, if the Radius is set to zero the image looks flat.

3.

The other alternative is to take the Radius setting up really high. But this too can iminish the Shadows/Highlights adjustment effect. It is useful to remember here that the optimum Radius setting is ‘area size’ related and falls somewhere midway between these two extremes. In the end, I went for a Radius setting of 130 pixels for the shadows. This was because I was correcting large shadow areas and this setting appeared to provide the optimum correction for this particular photo. I also increased the Midtone Contrast to +30. This final tweak compensated for any loss of contrast in the midtone areas.

Color Correction

As you correct the highlights and the shadows, the color saturation may change unexpectedly. This can be a consequence of using Shadows/Highlights to apply extreme adjustments. The Color Correction slider lets you compensate for any undesired color shifts.

CMYK Shadows/Highlights adjustments

You can use a Shadows/Highlights adjustment on CMYK as well as RGB images.

Midtone Contrast

The midtone areas may sometimes suffer as a result of a Shadows/Highlights adjustment. Even though you may have paid careful attention to getting all the above settings perfectly optimized so that you successfully target the shadows and highlights, the photograph can end up looking like it is lacking in contrast. The Midtone Contrast slider control lets you restore or add more contrast to the midtone areas.

Adobe Camera Raw adjustments

Shadows/Highlights adjustments can work great on a lot of images, but now that Camera Raw can be used to edit JPEG and TIFF images too, you may like to explore using the Recovery and Fill Light adjustments described on pages 176–177. In many cases Recovery and Fill Light work better than using Shadows/Highlights.

Color corrections

We shall now look at using the image adjustment controls to adjust the colors in an image. Again, almost everything you want to do to