How to Bring Out Shadows and Highlight Details

High contrast landscapes are difficult to capture their complete tonal range. This is a limitation of today’s cameras. This photo is taken on a sunny afternoon and PhotoDirector can work wonders in restoring its shadows and highlight details.

First of all, adjust the Dark and Darkest sliders to bring out colors of the trees.
Adjust Bright and Contrast to enhance the clouds.

Apply Gradient Mask to enhance color and contrast of the skies and cloud.

Next adjust sharpness and reduce noise.

Adjust the tonal curve for added punch.

Here is the before and after for comparison.

The final adjusted image here: