Adjustments

The ADJUSTMENTS panel in the right sidebar of the Editor holds twelve sliders that tune exposure, color, tone, and sharpness. They apply to whichever mask is currently selected — Global by default.

How adjustments work

Non-destructive. Every slider you move is a parameter, not a baked-in pixel change. You can dial it back at any time with no quality loss.
Masked. The current mask determines which pixels are affected. Move the Exposure slider with Subject selected, and only the subject brightens — the background stays untouched.
Live preview. Changes apply in real time so dragging a slider feels smooth even on big images. To keep that instant, the canvas composites a scaled-down copy of your photo rather than every one of its millions of pixels — and the four sliders whose effect depends on scale (Texture, Clarity, Sharpness, Denoise) are sized to match, so the preview closely tracks what the exported file gets. It’s an approximation, and on very high-resolution cameras the preview still overstates Sharpness somewhat. Zoom to 100% whenever the exact result matters — that renders the real pixels.
Per-history-entry. Adjustments are stored per result in the history strip, so you can move between results and the sliders update to show that result’s settings.
They follow you into Lightroom. Save a DNG and all twelve Global sliders are written as standard Camera Raw settings, so Lightroom, Camera Raw and Bridge open the file with your edits applied and still adjustable on their own sliders. Two land differently because Lightroom’s ranges are narrower than ours: a negative Sharpness (soften) has no Lightroom equivalent and arrives as 0, and a strongly cool Temperature stops at Lightroom’s coolest setting. Adjustments made on a mask have no equivalent in the DNG format at all — tick Bake adjustments into the DNG’s pixels (destructive) in the Save dialog if you need those to travel, and Macro Studio warns you when it applies. Reopen the DNG in Macro Studio and every slider returns at its exact value.

Setting a value

Drag the slider for the usual by-eye adjustment.
Type into the value to the right of the slider. It’s an editable field, not a read-only readout — click it, type a number, and press Return (or click away) to commit. Nothing applies until you commit, so you can correct a typo mid-entry. Use this when you want an exact figure, or to match a value you used on another image.

Resetting

Double-click any slider to reset just that one to default.
Double-click a slider’s label (e.g. “Exposure”) to reset it too — same result as double-clicking the slider itself, and an easier target.
Reset All at the bottom of the panel resets every slider in one click.
The eyeball toggle at the top of the panel hides the adjustment effect without changing the slider values — useful for a quick before/after. Click it again to bring the effect back. \ does the same thing from the keyboard, so you can flip back and forth without leaving the canvas.

The sliders

The twelve sliders sit in one list, in this order. Every slider defaults to 0 — a fresh result has no adjustments applied.

Slider	Range	What it does
Exposure	`-4.0` to `+4.0` EV	Linear brightness in stops. Good for matching exposure across multiple stacks.
Temperature	`-100` to `+100`	Warm/cool shift. Negative = cooler (blue); positive = warmer (amber).
Tint	`-100` to `+100`	Green/magenta shift. Useful for correcting fluorescent or LED lighting.
Contrast	`-100` to `+100`	Tonal separation around mid-grey. Positive deepens shadows and brightens highlights; negative flattens.
Highlights	`-100` to `+100`	Recovery in the upper tonal range. Negative pulls back blown highlights; positive opens them up.
Shadows	`-100` to `+100`	Lift or crush the bottom tonal range. Positive lifts shadow detail; negative deepens.
Texture	`-100` to `+100`	Mid-frequency contrast. Brings out fine surface texture on insects, mushrooms, fabric.
Clarity	`-100` to `+100`	Low-frequency contrast / local contrast. Adds punch without affecting overall exposure.
Vibrance	`-100` to `+100`	Smart saturation that protects already-saturated colors and skin tones.
Saturation	`-100` to `+100`	Flat saturation. Use sparingly — Vibrance usually produces nicer results.
Sharpness	`-100` to `+100`	Bipolar: positive sharpens edges, negative softens them. Apply positive values lightly — the stacker already maximizes per-region sharpness, so this is for additional pop. The negative half is useful for taking the edge off a background that’s rendering busier than you want.
Denoise	`0` to `100`	Luminance noise reduction. Especially useful on high-ISO macro shots.

Temperature and Tint are the two gradient sliders — their grooves are painted with the colors they shift toward, so you can see which way to drag.

Practical patterns

Bringing out subject detail without flattening the background

Click Subject in the MASKS panel.
Toggle the eyeball icon to confirm what the mask covers (magenta overlay).
On the Subject mask, push Texture to about +30, Clarity to +15, and Sharpness to +20.
Click Background and push Clarity down to -20 for a smoother bokeh feel.

Color-correcting a green cast from leaf reflection

Subjects shot near foliage often pick up a green cast from light bouncing off leaves.

Click Global (or Subject if it’s only on the subject).
Push Tint toward magenta (positive values) until the green tone neutralizes.
Optionally cool Temperature slightly to compensate for any overall warmth you introduced.

Lifting underexposed shadows

For a stack that came out a bit dark:

Global mask, Exposure to about +0.5 to +1.0 stops.
Shadows to +30 to +50 to recover detail.
Highlights to -10 to -20 if your highlights got too hot from the exposure lift.

Killing noise without smearing detail

Background mask, Denoise to +50 to +70 (noise is more visible in smooth areas).
Subject mask, Denoise to 0 to +20 (preserve detail; let the mask handle the rest).
Sharpness on the Subject mask to +10 to +15 to compensate for any minor softness.

Spotlighting the subject with a Radial mask

Draw the eye to the subject by quietly darkening everything around it:

Click Radial in the MASKS panel and drag the ellipse over your subject on the canvas.
Turn on Invert mask in the toolbar so the adjustment lands outside the ellipse.
Pull Exposure down to about -0.5 and Saturation down -10 to settle the surroundings.
Nudge Feather up if the falloff looks abrupt — a wide feather keeps the vignette invisible.

Graduating a bright sky or backdrop with a Linear mask

When the top of the frame blows out brighter than the rest:

Click Linear in the MASKS panel and drag from the top edge downward, so the ramp covers the bright band.
Pull Exposure down -0.3 to -0.7 and bring Highlights down -20 or so.
Drag the endpoints farther apart for a gentler blend, closer together for a more defined transition.

Tips

Less is more. The stacker already produces a clean, sharp result. Adjustments are for taste and tone, not heavy-handed correction.
Watch the eyeball toggle. Quick before/after at any point — toggle the panel-level eyeball, see if you’re actually improving the image.
Mask before adjusting. Most heavy-handed edits are actually a mask problem in disguise. Pick the right mask first, then tune.
Subject and Background sum to 100% — when you push Subject Exposure up and Background Exposure down, you’re effectively increasing subject/background separation without compositing.