Clipping deeper into the blacks does help hide the increased noise -- but that tends to negate some of the benefit I'm trying to achieve, which is to reveal more shadow detail.

The noise in shadow areas which I find most problematic after increasing Clarity is single-pixel and multi-pixel bright specks. These are the last to disappear when dragging the PV2012 slider to the left ... so by the time they're gone, a lot of desired shadow detail can be lost.

If making Clarity more noise-intelligent is not possible or practical, perhaps another approach might be to give the user more control over how much Noise Reduction is applied to the shadows vs. how much is applied to other regions. I'm guessing that LR already does this automagically to some extent -- but for situations like my images, where I'm pushing the shadows pretty heavily, it would be great to have more control ... e.g., use luminance NR = 25 for the highlights, 75 for the shadows.

LR3's noise reduction is the only NR I use for my production images, including those in which I've boosted the shadows quite a bit.

I'm afraid that unless something changes in LR4 (either better noise discrimination in Clarity, or a new feature to permit extra NR for the shadows,) I'll have to revert to my LR2 workflow, which included the use of 3rd-party NR software.

Rob and Jeff: Agreed, local adjustment is a useful technique for a small number of images -- but it would be impractical for my normal production workflow, where I deliver hundreds of images from each shoot.

Rob Cole wrote:

 

... Seriously though - try a custom camera calibration profile. You may find that if you can pre-finesse those shadows, then you may need far less clarity to get the job done ...

I understand how using a custom tone curve to boost the shadows could reduce the amount of Clarity needed to bring out shadow detail ... but why do you suggest doing this via a custom calibration profile, rather than as a custom point curve created using LR4's normal controls?

Rob Cole wrote:

 

Because the tone curve in the cam-cal profile is applied before the PV2012 sliders, and the reglar point curve is applied after.

 

I recommend using both curves, in addition to the basic sliders.

 

In Lr3, I used cam-cal profiles mostly for color adjustment. I think for Lr4 I will be creating a few for toning as well. Although I haven't done this yet, I fully anticipate doing it. I have noticed marked differences in basic slider behaviors and capabilities depending on which of my present profiles I have selected.

 

R

Thank you for the suggestion and the clarification. I will certainly try creating a custom cam-cal profile for my dark dance scenes, to boost the shadows before the image-aware slider adjustments kick in.

Rob: From my limited testing with LR4 release version, Clarity appears unchanged from the beta. In shadow regions, I still get very nice brightening of shadow detail, with amplification of bright speckled noise.