P: Changes to overall image when using Clarity with Clone tool

[risottto]

This long time Lightroom bug had been a thorn in my side for many years now, but have not seen other posts about it.

I often clone out the color chart out of an image after using it to set WB and Exposure. Sometimes though, just turning clone on/off or updating the spot changes the tone of the entire image!! Does not matter if it's regular clone, heal, or content aware just cloning out the color chart changes the tone of the whole image, this is definitely not how clone is supposed to work!

This seems to be linked to any use of the  Clarity slider, whether it's inside a mask or global, using the clone tool resets anything in lightroom using clarity to 0! Seems to happen more on nearly white images, but is extremely annoying to my work-flow not being able to use clarity and the clone tool simultaneously, and having to make a separate tiff in photoshop just to do a single spot heal on an image.

Please fix this bug, it has been in Lightroom for as many years as I can remember!

Lightroom 12.1, Ventura 13.1 on M1 Max 64GB.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I am unable to replicate this failure report with the instructions provided.

Moving from Bugs to Discussions. 

[risottto]

I'm sorry Rikk, but you are gravely mistaken that this is not a bug just because you claim that you could not replicate it.

Please immediately move this discussing back to 'bugs,' and finally attempt to correct it!

The video speaks the the plain fact that is an obvious bug!

To replicate the behavior, download the attached file, turn the clarity to 50, and clone out the color chart, you will immediately experience the exact same blatant bug that has been ruining my work-flow for years!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thank you for the example file that exhibits the issue. I can find no file in my library that behaves thusly.

This is not a Lightroom Classic bug but rather a Camera Raw issue as the failure occurs in Camera Raw as well. Camera Raw is the underlying engine used by all of the Lightroom Clients. I will be moving this post to the Camera Raw forums and logging a bug with that team. 

Thank you for the report and the sample file. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Setting status and adding bug number

[risottto]

Thank you lookling forward to a fix finally, yes it's wierd how it only occurrs on certain compositions of images, but when I shoot something with a lot of white space and not a lot of contrast (like line drawings), the effect gets much worse. Sometimes the entire image looks like it get's an exposure boost of half a stop when the color chart is cloned out!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The Camera Raw team has reviewed this and advised that the current behavior is as designed:

"This issue happens because Clarity and related sliders (Highlights, Shadows, Dehaze, Whites, and Blacks) self-adjust their ranges based on the statistics of the image content.

In images as shown, where most of the image content is very bright, and the only dark tones come from the background of the ColorChecker, cloning out (removing) it will very significantly change the image statistics because all dark tones disappear, leaving only the light tones.

Recommended workflow in this situation is to avoid applying Clarity, Highlights, Shadows, Dehaze, Whites and Blacks, until after cloning.

Other tools you can use initially if desired (before cloning) without this effect are Exposure, Contrast, Parametric & Point curves."

Note: We are working on a HelpX document to guide customers on best practices in Edit operations order. 

Moving from bugs to discussions. 

[risottto]

Hi Rikk,

I understand your attempt at an explanation, however it is blatantly not true in the most recent version of lightroom I am STILL having this problem with images that are freshly imported with Adobe Default Settings have ZERO sliders (Clarity, Highlights, Shadows, Dehaze, Whites and Blacks ALL at 0!!!), no adjustment layers, no custom DCP, just default settings everything at 0!

Could it be that the existing bug in previous versions of Lightroom; instead of being fixed; actually got worse in the newest version?

Your explanation that this is "designed behavior" that results from not following your "best practices order of operations" and not a bug is henceforth demonstrated to be patently false for a second time in the video below. Please move this back into BUGs and finally address the actual bug that has cost me hours upon dozens of hours of extra labor having to open images in Photoshop JUST to clone out one color chart without changing the entire image, which should be the most basic of operations.

Thank you and hopefully this will be adressed finally after close to a decade in lightroom dealing with this over and over again.

[risottto]

So no updates? Still demoted to 'discussions' because Adobe cannot acknowledge their flawed software?

I am not imagining this, still wasting hours of my time opening images in photoshop for no reason other than to avoid this design flaw! I have actually started placing the color chart farther away just so I don't have to deal with it and can just crop it out. As the video clearly shows, this BUG is truly a BUG and not designed behaviour as Rikk claims, as it still occurs with a fresh image and ALL settings at 0.