Adobe 13102498 - Photoshop CS3 - Mac User Manual page 178

Improve shadow and highlight detail
The Shadow/Highlight command is suitable for correcting photos with silhouetted images due to strong
backlighting or correcting subjects that have been slightly washed out because they were too close to the camera
flash. The adjustment is also useful for brightening areas of shadow in an otherwise well-lit image. The
Shadow/Highlight command does not simply lighten or darken an image; it lightens or darkens based on the
surrounding pixels (local neighborhood) in the shadows or highlights. For this reason, there are separate controls of
the shadows and the highlights. The defaults are set to fix images with backlighting problems. The Shadow/Highlight
command also has a Midtone Contrast slider, Black Clip option, and White Clip option for adjusting the overall
contrast of the image.
Original image, and Shadow/Highlight Correction applied
Adjust image shadows and highlights
Choose Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight.
1
Make sure the Preview option is selected in the dialog box if you want the image to be updated as you make adjust-
ments.
Adjust the amount of lighting correction by moving the Amount slider or entering a value in the Shadows or
2
Highlights percentage text box. Larger values provide either greater lightening of shadows or greater darkening of
highlights. You can adjust both Shadows and Highlights in an image.
3 For finer control, select Show More Options to make the additional adjustments.
(Optional) Click the Save As Defaults button to save your current settings and make them the default settings for
4
the Shadow/Highlights command. To restore the original default settings, hold down the Shift key while clicking the
Save As Defaults button.
Note: You can reuse Shadow/Highlight settings by clicking the Save button to save the current settings to a file and later
using the Load button to reload them. For more information on saving and loading settings, see "Save and reapply
adjustment dialog box settings" on page 159.
Click OK.
5
Shadow/Highlight command options
Controls the range of tones in the shadows or highlights that are modified. Smaller values restrict the
Tonal Width
adjustments to the darker regions for shadow correction and the lighter regions for highlight correction. Larger
values increase the range of tones that will be adjusted further into the midtones. For example, at 100% the shadow
tonal width slider affects the shadows the most, the midtones are partially affected, but the brightest highlights are
not affected. Tonal width varies from image to image. Too large a value may introduce halos around very dark or
very light edges. The default settings attempt to reduce these artifacts. Halos may also occur when the Shadow or
Highlight Amount values are too large.
PHOTOSHOP CS3 171
User Guide