Using the Shadow/Highlight command (Photoshop)


    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 up areas of shadow in an otherwise well-lit image. The Shadow/Highlight command does not just lighten or darken an image, it lightens or darkens based on the surrounding pixels (local neighborhood) in the shadows or highlights. This enables separate controls of the shadows and the highlights. The defaults are set to fix images suffering from 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
    Original image, and Shadow/Highlight Correction applied

To adjust the shadows and highlights in an image:

  1. Choose Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight.
  2. Make sure the Preview option is selected in the dialog box if you want the image to update as you make adjustments.

  3. Adjust the amount of lighting correction by moving the Amount slider or entering a value in the percentage text box for Shadows or Highlights. Larger values provide either greater lightening of shadows or greater darkening of highlights. You can make adjustments to both Shadows and Highlights in an image.
  4. For finer control, select Show More Options to make the additional shadow or highlight adjustments:
  5. Tonal Width

    Controls the range of tones in the shadows or highlights that are modified. Move the slider to the left or right to decrease or increase the Tonal Width value. Smaller values restrict the adjustments to only the darker regions for Shadow correction and only the lighter regions for Highlight correction. Larger values include more tonal regions (such as adding the midtones) that are being adjusted. A value of 100% produces a linear effect; for Shadow correction, deep shadows get modified the most with no correction to bright highlights and half the shadow correction to midtones. The tonal width requirements will vary from image to image. Specifying a value that is too large for a given image might introduce halos around strong dark to light edges. The default settings attempt to reduce these artifacts. These halos may occur when the Shadow or Highlight Amount values are too large; they can also be reduced by decreasing these values.

    Tip iconThe Tone Width default is set to 50%. If you find that you are trying to lighten a dark subject but the midtones or lighter regions are changing too much, try reducing the Shadow Tone Width towards zero. Then only the darkest regions will be lightened. On the other hand, if you need to brighten up the midtones as well as the shadows, increase the Shadows Tone Width toward 100%.

    Radius

    Controls the size of the local neighborhood around each pixel that is used to determine whether a pixel is in the shadows or highlights. Moving the slider to the left specifies a smaller area, and moving it to the right specifies a larger area. The optimum local neighborhood size depends on the image. It's best to experiment with the adjustment. If the Radius is too large, the adjustment tends to brighten (or darken) the whole image rather than brightening the subject only. It's best to set the radius to be roughly the size of the subjects of interest in the image. Experiment with different Radius settings to obtain the best balance between subject contrast and differential brightening (or darkening) of the subject compared to the background.

  6. In the Adjustments area, do one of the following to apply an image adjustment:
  7. Color Correction

    Allows fine tuning of the colors in regions of the image that have changed. This adjustment is only available in color images. For example, if you increase the Shadows Amount slider, you will bring out colors that were dark in the original image. You may want these colors to be more or less vivid. Adjust the Color Correction slider to give the best results. In general, increasing values tend to produce more saturated colors and decreasing values produce less saturated colors.

    Note: Since the Color Correction slider only affects changed portions of the image, the amount of color variation depends on how much or little Shadows or Highlights Amount is applied. The greater the correction made to the shadows and highlights, the greater the range of color correction available. The Color Correction slider applies subtle control over the darkened or lightened colors in the image. If you want to change the color hues or saturation over the whole image, use the Hue/Saturation command after applying the Shadow/Highlight command.

    Brightness

    Adjusts the brightness in a grayscale image. This adjustment is only available for grayscale images. Moving the Brightness slider to the left darkens a grayscale image, and moving the slider to the right lightens a grayscale image.

    Midtone Contrast

    Adjusts the contrast in the midtones. Move the slider to the left to reduce the contrast and to the right to increase the contrast. You can also enter a value in the Midtone Contrast text box. A negative value reduces contrast, and a positive value increases contrast. An increase in Midtone Contrast adjustment produces greater contrast in the midtones while tending to darken the shadows and lighten the highlights.

    Black Clip and White Clip

    Specifies how much of the shadows and highlights will be clipped to the new extreme shadow (level 0) and highlight (level 255) colors in the image. Larger values produce an image with greater contrast. Be careful of setting the clipping values too large, as this will lead to reduced detail in the shadows or highlights as the intensity values get clipped and sent to pure black or white.

  8. Click the Save As Defaults button to save and make your current settings the Shadow/Highlights command defaults. To restore the original defaults, hold the Shift key down while clicking the Save As Defaults button.
  9. Note: Different Shadow/Highlight settings can be reused by clicking the Save button to save the current settings to a file and later using the Load button to reload the settings. For more information on saving and loading settings, see Saving and reapplying settings.

  10. Click OK.