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19 - Exposure

The sliders below can affect all of the pixels, or just the blacks, whites, or midtones.

Exposure Slider

A photograph that's too bright or dark can be rescued here.

A JPEG version of the same photograph is not as amenable to the same amount of correction.

The slider uses Exposure Value, which is like the stops when using exposure compensation on your camera.

The Exposure slider creates a linear adjustment.

All of the pixels are brightened or darkened equally.

Think of the Exposure slider as being like the Highlights slider in Levels.

You're setting the white point with both sliders.

Recovery Slider

Use this slider to add tone to a too bright area.

If all three color layers are clipped, Recovery can't function.

If only one or two color layers are clipped, Recovery may be useful.

Fill Light Slider

This slider will make underexposed shadows brighter, without lightening the darkest blacks in the image.

Blacks

The Blacks slider is like the Shadows slider in Levels.

The Blacks slider creates a linear adjustment.

All of the pixels are brightened or darkened equally.

You're setting the black point with both sliders.

Brightness

The Brightness slider is like the Midtones slider in Levels.

The slider applies a gamma correction, which is non-linear.

The overall brightnessis adjusted.

The Brightness slider is similar to the Exposure slider.

There are two differences.

The Brightness slider isn't as powerful as the Exposure slider.

However, the Brightness slider won't clip the shadows or highlights like the Exposure slider.

Instead, it compresses the shadows and highlights to prevent clipping.

Contrast

The Contrast slider adjusts . . . the contrast.

The Contrast slider applies an s-curve around the midpoint set by the Brightness slider.

This is a non-linear adjustment.

Pixels are darkened below the midpoint, and are brightened above.

Summary of the Sliders

Exposure	White Point
Recovery	Overexposed Highlights
Fill Light	Underexposed Shadows
Blacks	Black Point
Brightness	Overall Brightness
Contrast	Contrast

20 - Clarity

Zoom the image to 100% when using this slider.

Double click the Zoom icon.

Contrast in the midtone areas is increased by using a sharpening algorithm.

The algorithm is similar to using the Unsharp Mask sharpening with a small Amount and high Radius, and only in the midtones.

21 - Vibrance

The Vibrance slider increases the saturation of colors that are not already saturated.

22 - Saturation

The Saturation slider increases the saturation of all of the colors, even if they're already highly saturated.

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