TOOL SCHOOL GET PICTURES WITH LUSH DETAIL

Discover how you can draw out the finest details in your images without overdoing it

01 CLARITY IN EYES

Clarity can work wonders over eyes. In particular, the iris will benefit, especially if you apply Clarity along with a slight increase in Exposure and Saturation. Use the Adjustment Brush and paint precisely over the iris, then increase Clarity to boost the detail in the iris. Make further local adjustments to boost the whites of the eye and darken the edges of the iris.

02 MIDTONES

A photo’s tonal range is split into shadows, midtones and highlights. In a histogram, midtones occupy the central third of the graph, with the shadows on the left and highlights on the right. Clarity affects the midtones by increasing contrast in this area. You might see the peaks near the centre spread apart as the midtones shift towards highlights and shadows.

03 ON-IMAGE CONTROLS

When the target is toggled on, you can drag over the image to adjust the colour ranges within. Here we can drag over the backdrop and transform the blue colours to another hue. Using the on-image tool is usually more effective than manually tweaking the sliders on the right. Not only is it quicker, it also lets you affect more than one colour range at a time.

04 NEGATIVE CLARITY

Most of the time you will want to add Clarity to crisp up the details in an image. But you can use negative Clarity, too. This has a subtle softening effect, which can be useful when applied selectively. It can allow you to de-emphasize distracting details, tone down overly contrasted areas, or reduce a strong global Clarity setting in areas where its effects are too strong. The softening effect can look great over skin as well.

05 CLARITY AND NOISE

Clarity can be great for textures and detail, but it can have an adverse effect on parts of a photograph, too. It tends to push tones into shadow, so you might need to counter this by increasing the Shadows slider.

It can also result in haloes around highcontrast edges like horizons, and a heavy approach can introduce noise into your image. To counter increased image noise, head to the Detail Panel and set Noise Luminance to around 30.

06 CLARITY SLIDER

To get started using Clarity, simply open an image in Lightroom or Camera Raw (in Photoshop, go to Filter>camera Raw Filter), then head to the Basic panel. Drag the Clarity slider to the right and notice how it crisps up the details and enhances the textures in the image.

All images are different, but typically it’s best not to go too high with the amount; around 40 or less will be sufficient for most photographs.