ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how to create localized adjustments so that photographers can optimize different areas of an image using different adjustments. To achieve the optimum dynamic range possible from the information recorded by the image sensor, they can open two images from the same Raw file and optimize each for a different end of the exposure range. Photographers can then simply merge the two exposures together. Some would call this manipulation, but in reality all photographers are doing is restoring the tonality back to how their human vision first saw the scene rather than how the camera interpreted it. In this way they can create images with much more drama than by just setting the black and white points for the entire image. The Raw file will open with the settings photographers used to process the file for the foreground rocks. They must now modify these settings to optimize the file for the sky.
