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Casamagnolia-wSzxs8
Participating Frequently
October 31, 2009
Question

Where is clarity?

  • October 31, 2009
  • 4 replies
  • 72621 views

I've used Photoshop for many years, but for several years now I've been using Photoshop only as a backend to Lightroom, mostly to use plugins, actually...  I recently got CS4 and am trying to learn about the new features.  Even CS2 had shadow/highlight, I've found vibrance.  But where is clarity?  I've done a search and apparently it can be found only in Camera RAW?  Can it really not be done in Photoshop?  In particular I wanted to apply negative clarity to see how it would look an image I'm working on.  Normally I would just wait until I go back to Lightroom to fine tune a picture, but that's really not the best way to work, I don't think.  In this case the picture will probably never be in Lightroom, certainly not at this moment.

Judy

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    4 replies

    M
    mcfitz25
    Participant
    September 27, 2011

    I'm trying to figure out where my clarity tool is in cs3 on mac. I've supposedly downloaded the update of at least 4.4.1 as I understand that ACR 4.0 did not have the clarity tool. What do I do after this download though? It is still nowhere to be found??

    Zeno Bokor
    Zeno Bokor
    Inspiring
    October 31, 2009

    you can use Unsharp Mask to simulate Clarity in Photoshop, just set a high radius and low amount values

      H
      Hudechrome-sd9sPI
      Participating Frequently
      October 31, 2009

      He wants negative clarity, Zeno, which the unsharp mask routine won't do.

      When I find myself in a pickle needing to go back to RAW, I dupe the file, delete the layers and run it in RAW. Export it back to PS and open the unflattened layers and move them over, being sure they are in the same stacking as before.

      Yeah, messy, otoh, you now have two files side by side to evaluate the results.

      Of course, save it as a tiff.

      Message was edited by: Hudechrome

      Zeno Bokor
      Zeno Bokor
      Inspiring
      October 31, 2009

      well then, duplicate layer, add Filter->Other->High Pass with a high Radius, Image->Adjustments->Invert and then set the blend mode of that layer to either Soft Light or Overlay

        J
        Jeff Schewe
        Participating Frequently
        October 31, 2009

        Casamagnolia wrote:

        But where is clarity?  I've done a search and apparently it can be found only in Camera RAW?  Can it really not be done in Photoshop?

        Nope...Clarity is a Camera Raw (and Lightroom) only function. as a result negative clarity can only be done in Camera Raw...as you've found out. Of course Camera Raw can work on JPEGs and flattened TIFF files...try that.

        C
        Casamagnolia-wSzxs8Author
        Participating Frequently
        October 31, 2009

        It looks like to get into Camera Raw with a jpg or tif I'd have to go through Bridge.   I guess that's OK in some cases, but in this case the file I'm working on came out of another program as a PSD file with two layers.  It doesn't seem sensible to flatten it and resave it to do this.

        Like I wrote, I usually do fine tuning in Lightroom.  I loaded this particular file and thought gee I wonder what would happen if I applied negative clarity for a kind of ethereal effect.  Well, where IS CLARITY?!  Nowhere...

        Some uses of clarity would not be the first thing you do to an image, but the last thing.  Which would require re-saving.

        B
        Bob_Shomler
        Participant
        October 31, 2009
        It looks like to get into Camera Raw with a jpg or tif I'd have to go through Bridge.

        You can open a jpeg or tiff in Photoshop-hosted camera raw (without going through Bridge) - In Photoshop:  File > Open As.  Select Camera Raw in the Open As box at the bottom.

        ssprengel
        ssprengel
        Inspiring
        October 31, 2009

        Clarity is similar to the Contrast slider in Shadow/Highlight.

        Are you saying you've replaced LR with CS4? Otherwise, why not apply negative clarity to the image before exporting to Photoshop.

        C
        Casamagnolia-wSzxs8Author
        Participating Frequently
        October 31, 2009

        Not everything I work on in Photoshop came from or will ever go to Lightroom.   It appears that contrast slider might be similar.  I'd have to do a direct comparison of the same image to tell.  Thanks for the tip!

        Judy

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