Underexposed areas often lose important texture and colour. DxO PhotoLab excels at recovering clean, noise-free shadow detail without banding or muddy tones. Here’s the workflow I use in commercial and travel photography.
When a RAW file is underexposed, shadows contain limited data. Lifting them aggressively introduces noise and colour blotching. DxO fixes this at the sensor level.
DeepPRIME XD2 suppresses noise *before* tonal recovery, allowing shadows to be lifted cleanly without destroying quality.
This stabilises shadow data, allowing more aggressive recovery.
Lift shadows gradually; avoid lifting blacks too much.
Add depth back into lifted areas without introducing noise.
Use Control Points or Graduated Filters to lift only the areas that need attention.
Clean, detailed shadows without colour shifts or digital artifacts — ideal for documentary, travel and low-light portrait work.
