Recover Highlights & Shadows

A classic rescue: the sky is too bright, the foreground too dark, or both. This recipe recovers detail globally first, then locally with a mask for the hard cases.

How much can be recovered?

RAW files usually hold about 1 to 2 stops of recoverable highlight detail and 3 to 5 stops of shadow detail, depending on the camera and ISO. JPEGs hold much less: bright areas that are white in a JPEG stay white.

If only one or two color channels are clipped, RapidRAW reconstructs them automatically when it decodes the RAW, so you often get back more than you expect. If all channels are clipped over a large area, there is nothing left to recover.

1. Look at the clipping

Press A to show the analytics display. Hover it and turn on Show Clipping Warnings: clipped highlights turn red and crushed shadows blue on the image. Switch to H (histogram) to see how much is clipped, or L (waveform) to see where in the frame it is.

2. Set the midtones with Exposure

Open Adjust (D). Move Exposure until the important midtones look right: faces, grass, buildings. Ignore the sky and the shadows for now.

3. Consider AgX

For scenes with very bright light (sunsets, backlight, street lights), switch the Tone Mapper to AgX. It squeezes the bright end gently into white, which often fixes "burnt" skies without touching a single slider. Add Contrast +10 to +20 afterwards, because AgX starts a bit flatter.

4. Recover the highlights

• Highlights −40 to −80. Clouds and sky texture come back.
• If it's still too bright near white, lower Whites −10 to −30.

The image will look flatter now. That's expected; step 6 fixes it.

5. Open the shadows

• Shadows +30 to +60. Dark areas show detail.
• If the darkest areas still look blocked, raise Blacks a little (+5 to +15). Don't overdo it, or the image goes grey.

6. Bring back contrast

• Quick: Contrast +15 to +30.
• Precise: open Curves, choose the L channel and add a gentle S-curve: a point at about a quarter pulled slightly down, a point at three quarters pushed slightly up. See Curves.
• Local contrast: Clarity +10 to +20 and Dehaze +10 bring back crispness in skies and landscapes.

7. Hard cases: a sky mask

When the sky needs more than the rest of the image can take:

1. Open Masks (M) and click Sky. The sky is selected right away.
2. With the mask selected: Exposure −0.5 to −1.0, Highlights −30 to −50, and some Saturation to bring the color back.

For a dark area such as an underexposed face, use a Subject or Face mask and raise Exposure and Shadows there.

8. Check for noise and color shifts

Strongly lifted shadows show noise. Zoom to 100% (Ctrl+1):

• Grainy shadows: turn on AI Denoise in Details → Noise Reduction.
• Green or magenta shadows: correct with Tint, or with Shadows Tint in Color Calibration.

Worked example

A sunset with a bright sky and a dark foreground:

See also

• Basic
• Curves
• Edit a Sunset Landscape