Adjust shadows and highlights when one side of the tonal range needs work but the whole image exposure should not move evenly. A backlit photo may need lifted shadows while the sky stays controlled. A product image may need reduced highlights while dark edges stay grounded.
Shadows and highlights
Shadows controls the darker parts of the image. Values above neutral lift dark areas. Values below neutral deepen them.
Highlights controls bright areas. Lower values can pull back bright regions; higher values can push them brighter.
Strong shadow lifting can reveal noise, compression blocks, or color blotches. Strong highlight recovery cannot bring back detail that was already clipped to pure white in the source file.
Tonal width and radius
Tonal width (shadows) decides how far the shadow correction reaches into midtones. Tonal width (highlights) does the same from the bright side.
Use narrower widths when only the darkest or brightest pixels should move. Use wider widths when the correction should reach faces, interiors, product surfaces, or cloudy skies.
Radius controls local smoothing. Higher radius values produce broader transitions on photos. Lower values keep the correction tighter but can look more obvious around edges.
Midtone contrast, Preserve color, and Mix
Midtone contrast restores or reduces separation after shadow and highlight changes. Use it when lifting shadows makes the image look flat.
Preserve color helps prevent saturation from shifting during tonal correction. Keep it on for most photos.
Mix blends the adjusted result with the original. If the tonal correction is right but too visible, lower Mix before rebuilding the settings.
How the adjustment works
The editor builds local brightness masks for dark and bright areas, applies the shadow and highlight corrections according to tonal width and radius, adjusts midtone contrast, optionally preserves color, and blends the result with the original. Preview uses a capped size for responsiveness; download renders the original dimensions.