User Guide

ACDSee™ Pro User Guide

Correcting shadows and highlights

You can use the Shadow/Highlight to adjust areas in an image that are too dark or too light, without

affecting areas that are already light or dark. You can also use the Shadow/Highlight tool to add color,

or to replace color that the Shadow/Highlight tool has removed. You can save your options as a preset

for future use.

Adding light to shadows

You can use the Shadow/Highlight tool to add light to shadows, without adding light to existing

highlights. This is useful if you have a photo of a person standing against a bright background, and the

person is in shadow. It is also useful if you have a photo taken indoors without a flash and most areas

of the photo are shadowed, or a photo taken at night and some areas of the photo appear to be

completely black.

To add light to shadows:

1 In Edit Mode, on the Edit panel, click Shadow/Highlight.

2 In the Lighten Shadows area, drag the Range slider to the left or right to select the range of pixels

to which you want to add light.

• Select a lower range if you want to add light to only the darkest areas in the photo.

• Select a higher range if you want to add light to most of the dark areas and some lighter

areas in the photo.

•Click Exposure warning to see pixels that are over- or underexposed.

3 In the Lighten Shadows area, drag the Amount slider to the left or right to select the amount of

light to add to the selected pixels.

4 Do one of the following:

•Click Done to apply your changes and close the tool.

•Click Cancel to discard all changes and close the tool.

Adding shadows to highlights

You can use the Shadow/Highlight tool to add shadows to highlights, without adding shadows to

existing dark areas. This can be useful if some areas of your photo are overexposed. For example, a

photo taken in bright sunlight so that some areas of the photo lack detail or are too bright.

To add shadows to highlights:

1 In Edit Mode, on the Edit panel, click Shadow/Highlight.

2 In the Darken Highlights area, drag the Range slider to the left or right to select the range of

pixels to which you want to add shadows.

• Select a lower range if you want to add shadows to only the brightest areas in the photo.