Lightroom Enhance Detail

Enhance details really only does something for the Xtrans sensor files and for really rare circumstances in all other cameras. Even there it is only useful if you print absolutely gigantically large. Otherwise there really is no benefit to it. I wrote about some of the rare circumstances here: Jao's photo blog: Enhanced details and what kind of images it helps with These circumstances only happen in very rare cases where you see the weaknesses of the Bayer array sensor crop up and again its utility is very low if you don't print at the 10 feet large size that my examples are shown at. Even at 4 feet high the artifacts are hard to see except looking at the print in closeup.

This update was really meant for Fuji shooters such as myself but it's not working at all for me. It takes a good 10 minutes to go through the process of "enhancing" and then it either gives me a totally screwed up picture with colors and patterns out of a bad LSD trip or it gives me nothing at all, like I didn't do anything. I am so beyond frustrated with Adobe at this point. How they have not yet managed to figure out how to properly read an X-trans sensor with the money and resources they have is nothing short of astounding. I unfortunately use Photoshop for my infrared photography, which I use an old Canon for, otherwise I would ditch Adobe in a heartbeat and go to Alien Skin's Exposure X4 for everything. This update is pathetic. It takes forever, uses tons and tons of GPU, and doesn't give me any usable results. What a waste of time!

I'm seeing a good difference on my Fuji RAW files, but it's much more subtle on my Sony files. 

I'm also having an odd issue with cut-out squares in some files when doing the enhancement.

Enhanced Detail will range for doing absolutely nothing visually to producing in best case (according to internal Adobe testing with Siemens Star resolution charts) 30% increase of resolution (NOT increase of pixels!). There is of course a before and after preview and the ideal zoom ratio to examine whether it's worthwhile converting the data to a linear DNG. So no, you're not necessarily doing anything wrong or seeing anything wrong. YMMV.

Put the DNG on a layer above the RAW and set to Difference mode to see the enhancements.

For my files, I haven't noticed a big difference either. There is a small difference, but nothing major.

From the Adobe Blog about Enhance Details:

Enhance Details | Adobe Blog

The 8.2 release has been rolling out in the last few hours but is now official. I have a couple of examples on my blog which also includes updates to LRCC. Scroll towards the bottom of the page for LR Classic and Enhance Details.

https://99jon.blogspot.com/2019/02/lightroom-february-2019-updates.html

The enhanced DNG should be much larger (file size) because it contains the original raw data and the demosaiced RGB data. But the pixel dimensions will not increase. I would say that if the magnified preview shows nothing worthwhile, there is little point in rendering the enhanced file. I think this is a tool for special subjects, not for general use on all images.

You're doing nothing wrong - the impact is subtle.

Try exporting an original and an enhanced version to PS as layers and set the top one's blending mode to difference. When you zoom in 1:1, you may or may not see some effects.