Clarity and Lightroom

[albertknappmd]

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I recently upgraded and noted that there is a new function called CLARITY... Any ideas as to its purpose and how to use it. How do you judge its efficacy.

also, noticed that sharpening function is more extensive and it is set on prefixed radius, control and activity numbers... Can these be reset to zero if you just want to sharpen later in CS3 ? :confused:

[Guest sirvine]

Albert,

 

Clarity seems to add contrast selectively. I'm sure someone can explain more fully, but the end result appears to be a subtle darkening of the interfaces between dark areas and light areas.

 

With respect to sharpening, it appears that if you have presets that zero'd sharpening in the old version of LR, all the new sharpening sliders are zero'd under the same preset in the new version.

[M6J]

I understand "clarity" as kind of local contrast enhancement feature. In my first tests it looks nice and handy, although I still can not decide how much of the CS2 local contrast USM I should replace with it.

I turn the LightRoom's sharpening off and do all the sharpening later in CS2/3.

[chris_tribble]

re Sharpening in LR - it's really worth reading Martin Evening's free intro: LightroomNews » Sharpening - what we all need to remember is that the LR Develop Mode sharpening is for CAPTURE - not for output. The LR workflow that Evening recommends (as does Geoff Schewe) is ...

 

1/ Capture sharpen in the Develop module to ensure overall sharpness and clarity of the image - compensating for moire filtering etc (many feel it's not needed with the M8 sensor) 2/ OUTPUT sharpen depending on the way the image is going to be viewed - Schewe recommends the max LR sharpen for printing - and admits it ain't perfect yet. I usually sharpen for print output in PS CS3 - I find LR is fine for web viewing...

 

Hope this helps.

[stephengilbert]

There's a good short video tutorial on the LR sharpening function at Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Albert try a shot with buildings and the skyline inthe background and max out the clarity slider back and forth , what i noticed contrast is added between the sky and back buildings and it builds a nice contrast between them. i am liking this new control

[robertwright]

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clarity is a easier way to do contrast masking-you can do the same in photoshop with the unsharp mask tool, just set a really large radius like 25px or more and no threshold and then add intensity and you will see edges gain contrast, and areas near the edges gain contrast too. It can be useful to give a photo some snap. Clarity just does it in one. But we don't need no 'stinkin clarity right?

[albertknappmd]

I will work with clarity and suspect it will become part fo the repertoire. As to sharpening, how do I turn it off ? :confused:

[johnwolf]

Clarity seems to adjust on mid-tone contrast. You see this clearly when you convert to BW and then watch the histogram while sliding Clarity. It's a modest change but very effective, I think. It's a standard step in my workflow now.

 

John

[Guest sirvine]

Sharpening can be turned off by creating a preset. I recommend a preset that neutralizes the values of all sliders (esp. brightness and contrast which default to +25 or something). You can apply presets at import to batches of newly-added photos, giving you a neutral starting point.

[albertknappmd]

thanks...

[Guest WPalank]

For me, clarity is more "hit" than "miss". As mentioned above, it effects contrast in the midtones. One word of caution, if a woman's face has any shadows, lines or wrinkles, it can make them more obvious.

 

As opposed to one of the posters above, rather than watching histograms, numbers, etc. I keep an eye on the image at 100% and increase or reduce the slider until there is an improvement.

[albertknappmd]

good point, William...

[teehas53]

Clarity seems to adjust on mid-tone contrast.

 

Exactly. It's a refinement of a set of routines developed by Thomas Knoll (father of PS) for local contrast enhancement. A great, quick tool for many kinds of images. But as William has observed, probably not a good choice for most portraits, where a mid-tone contrast boost is not likely to be helpful.

 

T