What process is necessary to improve the quality of an underexposed image?

To enhance the quality of an underexposed image, push processing is a technique that is particularly effective. This process involves deliberately over-developing photographic film or increasing the ISO setting when using digital cameras or raw image processing. By pushing the development time, you can bring out details in the shadows and improve overall brightness and contrast, which is essential for correcting underexposure.

While brightness adjustment can help make an underexposed image look brighter, it doesn't necessarily improve the quality by recovering details lost in dark areas of the image. Shadow recovery, often used in post-processing software, can make adjustments to the shadows, but it may also produce noise or unnatural artifacts if the original data is too limited. Color correction focuses on adjusting the hues and saturation rather than addressing the underexposure issue directly.

In contrast, push processing specifically targets and enhances the overall dynamic range of an image that lacks sufficient exposure, effectively improving its quality and detail retention.