is the clarity and dehaze adjustment layer a filter layer

Forum|Forum|17 days ago
January 28, 2026
3 replies
162 views

Am I mistaken or does the clarity and dehaze adjustment layer work on multiple pixels as opposed to »classical« Adjustments that processed each pixel individually?

Which would mean »Filter Layers« may have come to Photoshop?

D Fosse

Community Expert

That’s certainly how it works here. Not seeing any odd or unexpected behavior, it pretty much works as advertised:

So now we’re waiting for all the other filters. Of course, smart filters have been around, but this seems more convenient.

c.pfaffenbichler

Author

Community Expert

I think Affinity Photo has Filter Layers so a lot of people would expect Photoshop to offer them, too.

Even having the »classical« default Photoshop Filters (the non-Neural-Filters) as Layers would seem beneficial depending on if/how they handle transparency and clipping so I wonder if this is a »soft launch« of a new kind of Layers in Photoshop.

4rcane

Participating Frequently

Affinity has had Filter Layers for years and they work in real-time; the fact that Adobe's version pauses tells you it's still CPU bound. Until they move filters to GPU, this is just a half-measure.

E

ExUSA

Genius

I’m seeing some odd behavior with a Clarity layer, I need to test on some other machines but I may have both a bug report and insight into how it works.

Sameer K

Community Manager

Feel free to @ me when you find a pattern. Also, if possible, try PS beta, and I’ll bring it to the team’s attention.

Thanks!
Sameer K

E

ExUSA

Genius

Yes I just installed the 27.3 update last night at home, and it was on the first image I edited. Didn’t have time to do further testing but I will today on that machine and an Intel MacBook Pro.

c.pfaffenbichler

Author

Community Expert

This seems like a »big thing« to me as Filters as Adjustment Layers have been a longstanding Feature Request.

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