Plugs N Pixels

I've got a nasty example of an extreme lighting situation: Lunchtime at the famous Farmer's Market in LA (where James Dean ate his last breakfast...). Shot with no fill flash on auto-exposure, the original (top) is either too dark or too light with little middle ground.

I knew Lucis Art could pop open the shadows (second image), which it did to a great degree.

Photoshop's native Shadow/Highlight also did a decent job on its own, but with less contrast/color and detail.

So! I applied Shadow/Highlight to the Lucis Art version, and got an excellent final result.

See a larger version of these examples here.

Download the original unretouched camera image here.

See more Lucis Art corrected and creative-effect images here.

Please post your own suggestions for modifying this workflow.