Perfect Retouching In The Shadows
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I do most of my retouching at the start of my editing workflow. There is a simple trick I do when retouching in the shadows - an obvious approach, really, that I’ve done subconsciously for years. To really see what you’re doing in the shadows, overexpose and then do your retouches. When you see the detail in the shadows, you may modify your retouching approach for the best results.
The bird on the far left piling is not adding to the story of the photo. Retouching is challenging because that area of the photo is so dark.
The simple trick - overexpose the photo. Now the details in the shadows are obvious.
Then do your retouching. In this case, I switched to a clone-stamp tool to preserve the tree details in the background.