“Lifting the blacks” means making the darkest parts of an image brighter, especially deep shadows and near-black tones.

What it does:

• Reveals detail in blocked-up shadow areas
• Can reduce harsh, crushed blacks
• If pushed too far, can make the image look flat and may reveal noise in dark areas

In Lightroom, the exact control depends on the version and the look you want:

• Use the Shadows control to brighten dark areas while leaving midtones and highlights less affected
• Use the Blacks control to raise the black point, though this can also influence overall brightness and contrast more broadly

In general, lifting blacks works best with RAW files because they hold more shadow detail than JPEGs. If the original image doesn’t contain usable shadow information, lifting blacks won’t recover real detail and may just expose noise.

So, in short: lifted blacks = brighter darkest tones, usually to recover shadow detail or create a softer, less contrasty look.