Restoring underexposed files can seem like a challenge, but Lightroom has the tools to bring back lost detail without sacrificing quality. A properly exposed image captures more dynamic range, but when that’s not possible, knowing how to recover shadows without ruining the final result is essential.
Coming to you from Christian Möhrle - The Phlog Photography, this practical video walks you through rescuing an underexposed shot using only Lightroom. The first step is adjusting the exposure carefully—raising it just enough to recover detail without pushing highlights too far. Shadows and blacks get lifted to reveal texture, while highlights are pulled down to enhance sky detail. Noise is an inevitable side effect, but Möhrle shows how Lightroom’s AI Denoise tool handles it in a single click, restoring smoothness without excessive loss of sharpness.
The tutorial also focuses on white balance and texture. A slight warmth boost brings back natural colors, while clarity and dehaze adjustments create a softer, glowing effect. Möhrle avoids overcorrecting, keeping the image realistic while enhancing its visual impact. Once the basic exposure and color balance are set, masking tools take over. A linear gradient warms up the foreground, while a sky mask refines color in the highlights. Small tweaks like reducing blue luminance and selectively enhancing warm tones create a balanced, polished look.
Beyond exposure and color, Möhrle uses selective adjustments to refine specific elements. A radial gradient brightens part of the sky, mimicking a natural glow. Another mask enhances the subject by correcting color casts and sharpening key details. Foreground depth is improved with targeted exposure adjustments, adding separation between elements. Each step builds on the last, turning a flat, dark image into something vibrant and well-balanced.
Lightroom alone can take an underexposed image a long way, but Möhrle briefly steps into Photoshop for final refinements. He removes distractions using the Spot Healing Brush and enhances the glow effect with soft light painting. A touch of color grading through the Nik Collection plugin refines the mood further. These extra steps push the edit to a polished, professional level while still relying on a straightforward, non-destructive workflow. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Möhrle.
Always like to watch how others edit, this one is for when you forget to do a bracketed capture. I do not know if many know this but the reason for this save comes from ISO Invariance of the now many camera mirrorless makers, meaning you can use a low ISO for a capture and in post just increasing exposure you get a brighter image, YEH! A lot of work but educational for those blue hour captures. Also for those fall leaving captures on a sunny day where you need to lower the exposure well to a negative 3 or 5 to get rid of zebras saving highlights in clouds or for the soon to come birding season when you also have to dial down zebras to get detail of birds feathers. All of these dial downs leave you with a darker image but with saving highlights. If a subject is moving you can not bracket so this editing shows how to bring out detail of shadows but also the detail in highlights and while at it colorizing in needed places, a education to replay and remember.
1. a white baby bird in the nest airing out its wings on a sunny day, Lowing zebras gets the detail.
2. Few will have clouds in a colorful fall capture but again you reduce zebras to save cloud highlights
3. This also a time when using the correct setting to capture the moon detail but again reducing zebras also for the moon but ground lights and just increasing exposure in post brings things back to life.
4. not known by many but Astro Milky Way captures use the lower ISO's and zebra lowering to get better detail but again a dark image but with less noise and shadows get more detail with exposure and shadow increases.