Figure 1 - Jupiter's belts can be adjusted for greater visibility with Photoshop's Shadows and Highlights command. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see a comparison between the original uncorrected image and the corrected one.

The image of Jupiter seen in Figure 1 can be improved with Photoshop's Shadows and Highlights command.

Photoshop's Shadows and Highlights Command

Figure 2 - Photoshop's Shadows and Highlights Dialog

Reset the Defaults

Shadows and Highlights is a very powerful tool but the default settings are not very good, so the first thing we need to do is to change these.

• Go to Image > Adjustments > Shadows and Highlights.

• Check on Show More Options at the bottom of the dialog box (Figure 2, Number 1).

• First change both the Black Clip and White Clip to 0.01 percent (Figure 2, Number 2 and 3).

• For the Amount, Tonal Width of both the Shadows and Highlights sections, move the sliders until they all read 10 percent (Figure 2, Numbers 4,5,7,8). Move the Radius slider until it reads 10 pixels for both Shadows and Highlights (Figure 2, Number 6 and 9).

• Click the Save as Defaults button at the bottom.

Adjust the Shadows and Highlights

Here we will primarily be adjusting the image to bring out more highlight detail, but the same process can be used for enhancing shadow detail. Just note that enhancing shadow detail can easily exaggerate the noise in an image.

• Go to Image > Adjustments > Shadows and Highlights.

• Under Highlights, move the Amount slider to the right. (Figure 2, Number 7).

• Under Highlights, move the Tonal Width slider to the right. (Figure 2, Number 8).

• Adjust the amount of each based on the detail in the particular image you are working on.

• You can usually leave the Radius slider at about 10 pixels, but try adjusting it based on the content of the image.

• You cal also try adjusting the Color Correction (Figure 2, Number 10) and Midtone Contrast (Figure 2, Number 11) sliders in the Adjustments section.

From the new defaults we have set, we have only changed the Amount, Tonal Width for the Highlights, and the Midtone Contrast.

Figure 3 - Jupiter enhanced with the Shadows and Highlights command. Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see a comparison between the original uncorrected image and the corrected one.

In Figure 3 we can see the results of using Photoshop's Shadows and Highlights command. Highlight detail has been enhanced.

Using the Shadows and Highlights command to darken the highlights has, however, caused a bit of a loss of contrast in the image, so in the next step, we will increase the contrast of the overall image.