You have already seen two retouch tools that can be used with shadows and highlights: the Dodge tool, and the Burn tool. Although these tools can be applied to specific areas of an image, Photoshop CS provides a Shadow/Highlight dialog box that can be used to modify shadows and highlights for the entire image at once. This Shadow/Highlight feature is new in Photoshop CS and it gives users additional power and flexibility when working with light and shade.

 

To invoke the Shadow/Highlight dialog, choose Image ->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight from the menu bar. You may notice that the image you are modifying changes slightly. This is because the new Shadow/Highlight feature will adjust the image to a default shadow/highlight setting. Unlike the preceding hue/saturation sliders, and the brightness/contrast sliders, the Shadows Amount slider‘s default value is 50% rather than zero. Usually, just by invoking the dialog box you will see a change in your image.

 

At first glance, you will find that the shadow/highlight dialog box is very similar to the dialog box for the brightness and contrast.

 

 

Immediately you can see two sliders: one for Shadows and one for Highlights. If you increase the Amount for the shadow slider (for example, to a higher percentage) the shadows in the image as a whole will lighten, possibly revealing more underlying detail. If you move the slider the other way, to decrease the amount, the shadows will darken.

 

If you increase the Highlight amount to a higher percentage the highlights throughout the image will darken. If you decrease the Highlight amounts, the highlights will lighten.

 

If you wish, you can enter values for Shadows and Highlights directly in the fields provided.

 

As before, you can use the Alt key to make a Reset option available (the cancel button will display the word Reset when the Alt key is pressed). Clicking Reset will restore the image’s original values.

 

The shadow and highlight controls are great for correcting over or under exposed images. You can also use these controls effectively to balance or tweak light and shadow in practically any image.

 

As an example, consider the following Island girl image from the Photoshop practice folder.

 

This original image has a lot of dark shadow, especially in the lower foreground.

 

If you invoke the Shadow/highlight feature, (Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight) you can begin to see an increase in lightness and detail in the shaded regions.

 

 

You can get finer control over highlights and shadows by clicking the Show More Options checkbox. When you do this, the dialog box will appear as follows.

 

Now with the expanded options, you can see two additional sliders: Tonal Width and Radius.

 

The tonal width is the range of values that will be adjusted with the sliders. For example, a small tonal width setting for shadows would mean that only very dark regions will be affected by the sliders. Basically, if you move the tonal width slider to the right (for either the shadows or highlights) more regions of the image will be affected with changes to the shadow or highlight amount values. If you move the tonal width sliders to the left, fewer regions will be affected.

 

The radius sliders control the physical area of the pixels that are affected, based on location (as measured in pixels) rather than relative lightness or darkness.

 

How you adjust the Radius sliders and the Tonal Width sliders will depend on the image you are working with, and the end results that you are after. In general, you will probably want your radius values to be between 30 and 60 pixels to start, but feel free to experiment.

 

As for the tonal width values, first set your shadow and highlight amount sliders until you are satisfied with the results. Then adjust your tonal width sliders, watching carefully to see how they change the appearance of detail and light in your image. When you are happy with these adjustments, you may want to go back and tweak your Radius values to see if you can uncover any additional detail.

 

You can use the Colour Correction slider to compensate for loss of colour due to the shadow and highlight adjustments. Areas of the image that were not adjusted should not be affected by the Colour Correction values. You can also add contrast to the Midtones of an image with the Midtone Contrast slider if you wish.

 

As always, you can enter values directly in the fields provided if you prefer not to use the sliders. If you wish to save a particular group of settings, use the Save button. To load a saved configuration, use the Load button. If you click the OK button the adjustments you made will be implemented in the image.

 

 If you wish to revert to the condensed version of the dialog, clear the Show More Options checkbox.

 

 

The image on the left has had several adjustments made using the Shadow/Highlight dialog options. Which image do you think looks better?

 

The Island Girl image from the Photoshop Samples folder contains regions with interesting colour, as well as areas that are very dark and underexposed.  This makes the image ideal for practicing shadow and highlight adjustments.