MichelB wrote: Suzi,
It's amazing how we can 'push' the exposure by 4 stops... (not quite sure it is the exact equivalent of lens stops, but that should not be very far). That is a demonstration of the very high quality (noise and dynamic range) of your camera.
Well, anyway that's what you find in Adobe's 464 pages pdf help file for PSE6
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopEl ... 6_help.pdf
Tonal and image adjustments in camera raw files
Exposure Adjusts the brightness or darkness of an image.Move the slider to the left to darken the image; move it to the right to brighten the image. The values are in increments equivalent to f-stops. An adjustment of +1.50 is similar to widening the aperture one and one-half stops. Likewise, an adjustment of -1.50 is similar to reducing the aperture one and one-half stops.
Hold down Alt while moving the Exposure slider to preview where the highlights are clipped. (Clipping is the shifting of pixel values to either the highest highlight value or the lowest shadow value. Clipped areas are either completely white or completely black and have no image detail.) Move the slider until the highlights (not specular highlights) are completely clipped, and then reverse the adjustment slightly. Black indicates unclipped areas, and color indicates areas clipped in only one or two channels."