Today’s Question: In your presentation on “Make Your Photos Pop” as part of the Photoshop Virtual Summit, you talked about using Clarity to help enhance midtone contrast. Would it make sense to, for example, only apply Clarity to the landscape and not the sky in a photo, so the detail in the foreground is enhanced without affecting the sky?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to apply Clarity (or Texture or Dehaze) as a targeted adjustment. Just keep in mind that especially if there are clouds in the sky increasing the value for Clarity can add drama and contrast to the sky, so I recommend testing a global adjustment before making a decision about a targeted adjustment.
More Detail: The Clarity adjustment in Lightroom and Camera Raw enhances midtone contrast, and it can be tremendously helpful in adding a bit of drama and enhancing detail for photos. It is among one of my absolute favorite adjustments for easily adding a bit of “pop” to an image.
When the sky in an image includes some clouds, the Clarity adjustment can provide a great enhancement for that sky. However, it is absolutely reasonable to apply Clarity (or Texture or Dehaze) to only the foreground in an image. For example, with an image featuring a clear blue sky, the Clarity adjustment would have very little effect other than likely darkening the sky to some extent.
Ultimately though, in my view targeted adjustments using the masking features of Lightroom or Camera Raw can most certainly be leveraged when you want to apply specific adjustments to certain areas of a photo. If that means applying a Clarity adjustment to all areas of an image except the sky, that makes perfect sense if it helps get the image looking the way you want it to.
