The Fix for Shadow Problems: Fill Light
This is a control you’re not going to need to use every time (well, at least hopefully not. If you do, we have bigger problems to discuss). You’ll generally only use the Fill Light slider in situations where your subject is in the shadows, like when your subject is backlit (and you should have used a fill flash when you took the shot).
Step One:
When you open a photo where your subject is in the shadows, the Fill Light slider can do a remarkable job of fixing your problem. My photo assistant, Brad, took this shot of me at Mt. Norquay in Banff, Canada. It was shot late in the day and if you look at the before image on the next page, you can see that I’m backlit. While you can see some detail, the detail areas of the subject (me) are mostly in the shadows. If you drag the Exposure slider to the right (as shown here), it overexposes the sky.
BRAD MOORE
Step Two:
To open up the detail in those dark lower-midtone areas, just drag the Fill Light slider to the right (as seen here, where I dragged it over to 65, which opens up the foreground big time).
If you don’t wind up dragging it too far to the right, you’re done. However, if you wind up dragging it quite a bit to the right (like I did here), it can sometimes cause the photo to look a little washed out. In those situations, I go to the Blacks slider and drag it just a little to the right to bring back some of the richness and color saturation in the deep shadow areas. Now, there is a difference if you’re working with RAW or JPEG/TIFF images. With RAW images, the default setting for the Blacks will be 5, and generally all you’ll need to do is move them over to 7 or 8. However, on JPEG or TIFF images, your default is 0, and I tend to drag them a little farther. Of course, every image is different (here, I only dragged them to 4), but either way, you shouldn’t have to move the Blacks slider too far (just remember—the farther you move your Fill Light slider to the right, the more you’ll have to compensate by adding more Blacks).
