Shadows/Highlights and HDR Toning, step by step

Backlit portraits, rooms with a bright window, landscapes with a dark foreground and a bright sky: the camera often can't hold both ends, and you end up with shadows too dark or highlights too bright. Shadows/Highlights in Paint by Zaweba is built to rescue those pictures. HDR Toning goes further and gives a bold, high detail look from a single image.

Both are direct commands, not adjustment layers. They change the pixels of the layer you apply them to, so it's wise to duplicate the layer first with Ctrl+J. If you want them to stay editable, they're among the filters that can be used as live filter layers.

Shadows/Highlights

There are separate settings for shadows and for highlights. Each has an amount, a tonal width and a radius.

Amount is how strongly the shadows are lifted or the highlights pulled down. Tonal width sets how far into the midtones the effect reaches. A narrow width works only on the darkest shadows or brightest highlights; a wider one takes in more. Radius controls the size of the area each pixel looks at to decide whether it's in shadow or highlight. Too small and the effect looks flat; too large and halos can appear around edges.

There's also colour correction, which keeps colours from going dull or garish in the areas you changed, midtone contrast to restore punch to the middle tones, and clipping settings for the ends of the range.

A good approach

Start with the shadow amount alone. Raise it until the dark areas show detail but still look like shadows. Then adjust tonal width so the lift doesn't spread into tones that were fine. Then try radius, watching edges for halos.

Do the same for highlights if the sky or a window is too bright.

Finish with a touch of midtone contrast, since lifting shadows and pulling down highlights both reduce contrast, and the picture can look flat.

HDR Toning

HDR Toning gives a stronger, more stylised result. Its core is local adaptation, which adjusts contrast region by region, with edge glow radius and strength controlling how that adaptation behaves around edges.

Alongside are equalise histogram, exposure, gamma, highlight compression, shadow, highlight, vibrance, saturation and a toning curve. That's a lot of controls, but they fall into three groups: the local adaptation itself, overall tone (exposure, gamma, compression, shadow, highlight, toning curve) and colour (vibrance, saturation).

For a natural result, keep edge glow subtle and saturation modest. For the dramatic HDR look, push local adaptation and edge glow and add vibrance.

Halos and flat greys

Overdoing the shadow amount makes pictures look grey and flat. Real shadows should still be darker than everything else.

Halos around edges, especially between a dark building and a bright sky, come from the radius. Change it until they go.

With HDR Toning, too much edge glow gives the glowing outlines that many people find off-putting. Use it sparingly unless that's the look you want.

And always keep the original. Because these commands change pixels directly, a duplicated layer, or a live filter layer, is your safety net.

Used with a light hand, Shadows/Highlights is one of the most useful repair tools in Paint by Zaweba, and HDR Toning is there for when you want something bolder.