03 Midtones adjustment
Now I’ve reset the Highlights slider and pushed the Midtones slider up to maximum. This is more interesting. The textures in the stonework are now coming out much more clearly, but it’s had no impact on the shadows. Even so, there’s something a little flat-looking and unrealistic about the results, so I’ll reset the Midtones slider to zero and try out the Shadows slider.
04 Shadows adjustment
This is more like it. It turns out most of the interesting textures were in the shadows region, and this slider has really brought them out. In fact, I don’t need to push it all the way to maximum to get the desired effect – a setting of 69% looks about right.
05 Increasing saturation
I’ll finish off by increasing the Saturation value. This applies to the whole image, including highlights, midtones and shadows. It’s given this picture the perfect finishing touch.
06 The finished picture
Now that NIK is going away are there any programs that do what NIK’s TONAL CONTRAST does?