Highlight and Shadow Clipping

Here’s a tip that I used in Adobe Camera Raw all the time and it is now in Lightroom too. You may be like me: I’m not a huge fan of turning on the shadow and highlight clipping warnings. Why you ask? Well, I don’t care for the red and blue colors it puts all over my photo, so I usually wind up turning them off. Check this out. If you hold down the Alt key (Option on Mac) and start dragging the Exposure slider (or the Shadow slider for the darks), you’ll see everything turn black. As you drag toward the right, you’ll eventually start seeing some colors appear. That’s Lightroom’s way of telling you those areas will be clipped (all white or all black) if you don’t pull back. It’s a good visual way to set your exposure and shadow settings without leaving your clipping warnings on all the time.