The task will then be how we PRE-VISUALIZE and CONVERT the above captured zones to the PROCESSED ELECTRONIC IMAGE (C1 
), and our PRINT. That is the "digital" interpretation of book three of Ansel Adams 
.
Indeed, I still haven't found a better book on this topic.
The tools described are old chemical ones, so you may want to skip the kitchen recipes
, but the descriptions of what makes a good print in Ansel Adam's eye are still very valuable today.
I use either Leaf Capture or Adobe RAW to convert my files
In Adobe Camera Raw, you can compress the tonemapping on the shadow side very effectively with the Fill Light tool ; it does something analog to a local contrast enhancement and dodging in the shadows, so to speak. You may have to adjust the Blacks level after that.
There is also the possibility to compress the highlights with the Recovery tool, but there may be more side effects (hue shifts sometimes).
You may also want to play on the global tonality curve or on some parts of it, eg by adjusting brightness on one way and counteract with exposure on the other, but (as with the reduced development trick) the local contrast may suffer in the compressed areas with these global tools.
