A bright fringe around a mountain or a dark border around hair does not always belong to the captured scene. Such halos often result from strong contrast processing or a poorly balanced local adjustment. They may resemble extra clarity in a small preview and look much more artificial in print. Find their cause before retouching over the edge.
Find the responsible adjustment
Disable sharpening, clarity or local contrast, and local masks in turn. Watch a specific troublesome edge. If the fringe disappears when one step is disabled, you have a useful starting point. Several mild effects may also combine into a conspicuous halo.
Compare with the unedited capture. Backlighting can genuinely produce a bright rim around hair or leaves. Do not automatically remove this natural light. The question is whether processing introduced an implausible outline or exaggerated an existing one.
Reduce strength and width separately
With sharpening, strength controls how strongly edge contrast changes, while radius affects its spatial extent. Reduce both deliberately instead of compensating for one extreme with another. Fine details do not require the same treatment as large shapes.
If the fringe follows a mask, inspect its overlay. An overly broad selection can brighten the background, while a narrowly bounded dark adjustment creates a hard edge. Refine the transition and, where necessary, reduce the brightness change itself. A perfect selection does not automatically make unrealistic lighting believable.
Inspect again after export
Downsizing and additional output sharpening can emphasize previously faint fringes. Inspect the finished file at its intended size. Pay particular attention to treetops against sky, dark window frames and portraits against bright backgrounds.
If one small area remains, a targeted repair may be appropriate. Keep it separate and compare with the original so genuine structure is not lost. A slightly more restrained image often works better than maximum crispness surrounded by glowing outlines. For a large print, a section at final scale confirms whether the compromise succeeds.
