Increasing the highlights could make the light areas of your photo really stand out, but usually comes at the cost of detail in these light areas. How you use these tools will depend on the image and personal taste.
Highlights and Shadows allow you to target and tweak the light and dark tonal areas of your image. Read my article on using the Brightness and Contrast tools in Windows 10 here. If you want finer control over your images lighting, read on. Most lighting edits in digital photography are done by adjusting the brightness (overall light/dark across all pixels in the image) and the contrast (simultaneously making the whites whiter and blacks blacker).
