HDRI Lighting: Adjusting contrast?

Laurita

I tend to use HDRIs for outdoor renders because I like the natural light dispersion. However sometimes the shadows appear too deep and the lights too bright. Although I could fix most of it in post, I'd prefer less contrast in as render to begin with.

The Tone Mapping settings will help of course but only so far. So I think that there has to be another way. I tinkered with Matte Fog but wasn't very successful. Any further ideas?

IceCrMn

You can adjust the HDRI's contrast in a photo editor that supports it.

GIMP is free and it does if I remember correctly.