RAW Conversion - RAW 101: Better Images with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements - page 61

Figure 3.17 The Automatic
setting for Shadows in this
image is 8. There is some
clipping in the egret's legs,
but this is acceptable for the
subject. (Image courtesy
of Peter Burian, www
.peterkburian.com )

You can also see that a bit of highlight detail is being clipped at the top of the
bird's head and wing. The first step in correcting the image is to reduce the exposure to
bring the highlights into range, so I reduced Exposure to +0.65. This let me add just a
bit more shadow detail to darken the background a bit. With just an increase of one
more shadow point, detail was also added to the egret's wings. Figure 3.18 shows the
new settings. Final adjustments were then made to the Brightness and Contrast sliders,
as shown in Figure 3.19.

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Figure 3.18 Dropping the
Exposure just enough to elimi-
nate clipped highlights has
given the image enough room
to increase Shadow detail by 1
point. The amount of shadow
data being clipped is affected,
but the background is darkened
a bit to make the bird stand out
more.