The first pass crushed readability ('can't see anything'): dark ground x low ambient x dim sun x +12 contrast (clipped everything below midtone to black) x vignette x dark fog. Rebalanced toward legibility while keeping the dark-frontier mood: ColorAdjustments contrast 12->4 (the main fix), post-exposure 0.55->0.85, saturation 0->4; sun 0.9->1.5 cool-white; ambient intensity 0.62->1.0 with lifted cool ambient colors; vignette 0.32->0.20; ground material lifted ~18%->~28% value; fog pushed out (start 18->26, end 42->60); Core beacon range 9->13. Ground, player silhouette, Ore ring and shadows now all read; Core stays the bright cyan peak.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
kronic
b10605a8c4