There used to be a thread in this forum about exaclty this. It was quite lenghty, but I seriously cannot find it anymore.

It even had almost exactly the same title.

Do some thread sometimes get deleted or am I just stupid?

Just trying the clarity sliders... I wish they put another slider that resambles de one PV2010.. well maybe I need to try it more, it makes some amazing things but some old looks are hard to do the way Clarity slider works now.

Hi Dan,

As a result of the thread refered to above by slarti3, Eric Chan of Adobe said he was going to make some tweaks to clarity - dunno what they will be, but some comments were regarding the brightening effect.

I'm sure it's not a bug.

Rob

I used to want it to not brighten so much - now I'm not so sure...

Reason:

- clarity is no longer needed for the majority of photos since Lr4 produces very clear pictures without it.

- negative clarity is a very effective means for debrightening and smoothing tones when Lr4 has brightened some stuff a little more than I'd like in a particular region of a photo. Not only that but it will brighten adjacent overdark areas a little bit too.

new +clarity is almost like a local adaptive contrast exagerator, and

-clarity is almost like a local adaptive contrast attenuator, sorta-ish.

If no big changes are made to new clarity, I expect I'll be using global +clarity only occasionally, and local -clarity a lot.

Rob

Sure would like to have a control act like it used to (I know, in LR4, everything is different). It seems like there are other controls that can do "debrightening". If photos don't need clarity any more because of new processes in Lr4, that's fine, but why change what it used to do? I don't get it.

Jeff Schewe wrote:

 

Dan Ro wrote:

 

If photos don't need clarity any more because of new processes in Lr4, that's fine, but why change what it used to do? I don't get it.

 

Because the old Clarity causes halos...the new Clarity doesn't.

Don't underestimate how important this is.

See if you can guess which one is without clarity, with clarity in PV2010, and with clarity in PV2012.

The new clarity along with highlights produces amazing results for me, especially for painting model's hair.  It's aggressive compared to the previous one but that only means you have to slide it less.  This was the problem for me regarding many sliders in LR3, their wasn't enough range but now that most of the tools have made an experience in the adjustment brush section that problem has largely been solved.

I now only need Photoshop for liquify, cloning and healing.

Good job!

Although I appreciate all the improvements in new clarity, sometimes it just looks ugly to me - not sure how else to put it. And, sometimes it looks great...

Summary:

------------

Sometimes old clarity looks better, maybe with some local declarity to tone down the "overemphasis".

Sometimes new clarity looks better, maybe with some local declarity to tone down the "ugliness".

Rob

If you add its much greater effect in the shadows, and it's slightly greater effect in the highlights, and factor in it's much stronger brightening effect, then sum-total clarity could be thought of as being 2X stronger, but to me it's like comparing apples to oranges - it's stronger some places in some ways, but weaker in others.

Note: Adobe does not halfen clarity when converting PV2010 photos to PV2012.

I mean even in the airplane example overall clarity looks much greater to me in PV10@100 than PV12@50. Try setting PV2010 clarity to 50 so it matches the PV2012 version (numerically), then pass a -clarity brush over the halo-y areas - now which do you like best? (My point stands regardless of your answer to this question for this particular case).

Don't get me wrong - "no halos" is a feature (as is clarifying of shadows...), but sometimes new clarity just looks uglier - I wish I didn't feel that way, but I'm willing to use it on far less photos than old clarity because of it. Or when I do, I often do extensive declarification (or just apply locally in the first place). Cleanup of halos with old clarity was generally much quicker than cleanup of the "over-clarification" due to new clarity.

Summary:

------------

Sometimes new clarity is a huge improvement in some photos. But other times: not so much...

I'd be curious to know if new clarity is really an interdependent part of PV2012, or relatively independent.

i.e. would it even be "possible" to have both? If so, could they be used at the same time?...

(I realize this won't happen before Lr4 is released, just curious...)

Rob

slarti3 wrote:

 

They are like two orthogonal vectors

I think you're exagerating .

slarti3 wrote:

 

...maybe 70 degrees in between ^^

I can go along with that .

slarti3 wrote:

 

And since PV2010 will still be available and mostly does a decent enough job, I have decided to simply use it whenever the offects of 2010 clarity are much wanted.

I really hope to not have to do that, but as I alluded to in a previous thread "I am prepared for it" (emotionally/psychologically...).

Rob

Rob Cole wrote:

 

I'd be curious to know if new clarity is really an interdependent part of PV2012, or relatively independent.

i.e. would it even be "possible" to have both?

PV 2012 Clarity is a whole different algorithm when set to plus (negative Clarity in PV 2012 is the same as 2010). So, it's an either/or situation with no possibility to having an option in the Basic panel. Either you accespt PV 2012 and the new stuff or you accept PV 2010.

Jeff Schewe wrote:

 

...no possibility to having an option in the Basic panel...

I get that it's too late now for Lr4, but I think Adobe should keep in mind for the future that some of us want to be able to increase the amount slider and have a nice result much of the time, but then proceed to adjust the other sliders to fine tune for optimal results at other times.

And I think we should not forget that Adobe would like to sell Photoshop to us as well... So we probably cannot expect too much fine tuning for image improving processes...

I don't think that Photoshop even comes into the equation.  LR still has healthy competition with C1, Aperture, Bibble and others and so far from what i can see LR3 'fine tunes' a whole lot better and faster.

The days when the competition can master competent layering, Liquify, masking, cloning and healing in only mids, lights or darks are a long, long way away.

I'm sure photoshop will be cannibalized in some part but only in a tablet/laptop kinda way, the money still goes in the Adobe bank and Photoshop is still very much an integral part of the graphic and web world.