Shadow-Highlights Legacy version

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Is there any way to access a legacy version of Shadow Highlights? I recently upgraded to the latest CC from an old version of PS. I was able to use the old Shadow Highlights to do a general correction for a batch of concert or people photos before re-editing individually. It brought up the shadows and limited the highlights in a sensible way. The new SHH (and all the other light controls I have tried) are very crude — every correction seems drastic. The slightest tweak sends levels into the fake-looking stratosphere, and this over-sensitivity makes global corrections impossible. In general in PS, the corrections aren’t scaled correctly. If you want a big change in the image you should have to dial it up over 50% more or less, not tiny percentages hard to control.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Is there any way to access a legacy version of Shadow Highlights?

It should already be accessible without having to change any application settings, because every form of that feature that has ever been in Photoshop is still there in Photoshop 2026, as shown in the picture below. None have been removed.

If you used the old command Image > Adjustments > Shadows/Highlights, it’s still there.

If you used the Shadows/Highlights options in Adobe Camera Raw or the Camera Raw Filter, those are still there too.

The Highlights/Shadows options in the new Light adjustment layer have the advantage of being non-destructive and more immediately available than the old Shadows/Highlights dialog box.

But I also agree very much with D Fosse that if the originals are raw files, the highest quality Shadows/Highlights adjustments are in Adobe Camera Raw (or Lightroom Classic or Lightroom) when applied to the raw file, before it’s down-converted to a non-raw Photoshop document.

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D Fosse

Community Expert

If the originals are raw files, not RGB files (jpeg/TIFF etc) - then you should absolutely do this in the raw processor like ACR or LrC, not with Shadows/Highlights in Photoshop.

The reason is that a raw file, as captured by the camera sensor, has a dynamic range of about 14 f-stops. Rendering this into a gamma-encoded RGB file in Photoshop hard clips the data to about 8 stops of dynamic range. The high and low ends are permanently discarded.

This means that a raw file has a lot of “hidden” data for highlight and shadow recovery, which the corresponding RGB file simply doesn’t have. The difference can be dramatic.

The raw file can hold all this data because of the linear encoding, which produces a flat ramp of values. A much wider range of highs and lows can be contained within the same space, so to speak. If you could see this raw image directly (which you can’t), you would see a very dull, flat and dark monochrome image, not a useable image at all.

Here’s a rough simulation of how a raw file would look, compared to the rendered RGB file:

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Cheerful_makerd8f7Author

Participant

Thank you. This reply goes to you and to Conrad, who was also kind enough to make suggestions to help me. If I was using raw files I would have I would have lots of options. My goal is quick turnaround for entertainment news. I found that the old parameters of Shadow Highlights enabled me to make selections, process them quickly with a set that brought up the shadow areas and limited the hot areas just enough to put them very close to printable quality, if not there. I think of it as the way a limiter works in a music studio. All the new controls are nuclear by comparison, the slightest tweak and the photos look terrible, or worse -- they look fake with that raw over-processed look. The sliders may look the same, but they don’t control the same levels, or with the same soft subtlety. If I had 10-20 minutes to spend on each frame there would be no issue, SHH was an incredible valuable shortcut for me. I have dialed it down in the last few jobs to a better level so it’s sort of working at reduced levels. Do you not find that controls on everything in CC are way too strong, requiring miniscule tweaks?

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Jeff Arola

Community Expert

What operating system are you using?

You could try going to Edit>Preferences>Technology Previews (Windows) or Photoshop 2026>Settings>Technology Previews (Mac), uncheck Enable Modern User Interface, restart Photoshop and see if that makes any difference.

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Sunny_Rhapsody2914

Participant

Hi Jeff, Thanks very much for the suggestion. I’m on the latest Mac OS and a MacBook Pro. What you sent is interesting. It’s a little better in some ways when you do that, not quite what I was used to in CS5 that was more controllable. I wonder if that setting affects other tools and whether that works overall ok. Very much appreciate you taking time to help me. Randall

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