Opening the Shadows
The shadow area on the right just below the rim is a completely different situation. Here the problem is that the area is too dark and lacking in detail. The desired remedy is to increase brightness and contrast in a controlled fashion so that there is greater detail, while at the same time preserving the blackness of the darkest elements to avoid a washed-out look that too-light shadows can have. Figure 11 shows the area before and after luminosity painting.
Figure 11
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Figure 12 shows the selection that was painted through, in this case the Lights selection, and the resulting Burn/Dodge layer that created this effect.
Figure 12
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Once again, the tonal outline of the area is clearly visible on the Burn/Dodge layer. That's because white paint was applied to the layer through the Lights selection. Like in the first example, painting through a luminosity selection will lay down paint in proportion to the brightness of each pixel creating an outline of the image. But since there are almost no light tones in this shadow area, it's reasonable to wonder if painting through a Lights selection will have any affect on the dark tones? The answer is "Yes." Even though this area is quite dark to begin with, there is still tonal separation. The Lights selection partially and properly selects the darker pixels in proportion to their level of brightness. Several passes with a high-opacity brush (75% in this case) can still force some paint to be deposited onto the Burn/Dodge layer through these weakly selected pixels. Since painting through the Lights selection causes lighter pixels to get more paint, painting white into the shadows through this selection exaggerates the small degree of tonal separation that does exist. White paint on a Burn/Dodge layer dodges or lightens the colors beneath it. The gradient of white paint established by the Lights selection therefore opens up the shadows quite nicely as it creates the visible "imprint" of the scene on the Burn/Dodge layer.