Checking out the new "texture" slider in Lightroom

[DanK]

Having been somewhat baffled by the contradictory explanations of the clarity slider I have seen in the past, I decided to test my understanding of that and compare it to the new texture slider.

From what I have read and seen, the clarity slider combines at least two different adjustments: midtone contrast and local contrast. It appears to alter saturation as well, which would make sense if it is doing a midtone contrast adjustment on the R, G, and B channels.

From what I have seen, the texture slider is supposed to affect higher frequency details than are affected by the clarity slider, but I found no references to midtone contrast.

So, I created the following set of images, all based on a roughly 100% crop of an otherwise unedited image. First, here is the unedited image:



And here is the corresponding histogram:




Now, here is the same image with texture set to 100, followed by the corresponding histogram:





The details are more visible, while the histogram is only slightly altered. This is what one would expect with a local contrast adjustment.

Now, here is the same image with texture returned to 0 and clarity set to 100:





In this case, the increase in midtone contrast is obvious from both the image and the histogram. There is an increase in saturation as well.

What is less apparent is the other, advertised difference between the two: texture is supposed to affect higher-frequency details than does clarity, if I recall correctly.

[davidedric]

Thanks, Dan, very interesting. I thought that I'd try the same sort of thing, but using a "stepped wedge" rather than an actual photo. Here are the results - make of them what you will!

Dave

Original stepped wedge




Now with 50% Clarity (any more and the histogram gets very hard to read)






And finally with 50% texture

[Astro]

Dave, Dan, Thanks for the comparisons, I'm 'out of the country' at present, and had downlowded the latest update, but not had time to investigate the new slider...

Interesting, and informative results,

[Manfred M]

Thanks for posting Dan and Dave.

The histogram shows what I would have expected as both these functions impact microcontrast, so the boundaries between areas of highlight and shadow would be accentuated. The step wedge shows the impact of clarity is definitely more subtle than with texture, but then that really should not come as a surprise either.

It's good to have another tool in the toolkit, but just like with the clarity (and dehaze function - also a microcontrast impact), it's a tool where it will be all too easy to overdo things.

I find the implementation a bit unfortunate as the user has no opportunity to change the parameters. I would have preferred something like on some of the more advanced sharpening tools where impact can be changed (via things like the radius, amount and threshold).

[DanK]

The bottom lines for me--assuming I now understand this correctly--are:

1. I'll use texture more than clarity--not because of the difference in parameter for local contrast, but because it is closer to a pure local contrast adjustment, without the strong mid-tone contrast adjustment that is part of clarity.

2. When I want finer control, I'll turn to a USM-based local contrast adjustment in Photoshop.

With respect to #1: I like to have control over individual edits and don't in general like engineered combinations. From what I have read, for what that is worth, the initial idea for clarity was precisely to combine a mid-tone contrast adjustment with a local contrast adjustment.

With respect to #2: I have on occasion varied the parameters for a local contrast adjustment in photoshop, but my most common adjustment is the amount, which one can adjust in LR too. I've only occasionally adjusted the radius from my default value of 50, which I took from the 2009 Luminous Landscape article on this. Texture does have a different (smaller) radius value than clarity, but given that they differ in other respects, that is less useful, IMHO.

[rpcrowe]

This video seems to explain....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6TMlwYTZd8

[DanK]

This video seems to explain....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6TMlwYTZd8

Sort of.

It's one of the sources I looked at before I tried my little test. Grey is a great source, and his videos, unlike those of certain other experts I shall leave unnamed, are organized and clear. However, it seemed incomplete to me. He talks about the four options in terms of scale--what in a technical forum I think would be called frequency. However, that's only part of the story, and he makes only one passing reference to midtone contrast, and he doesn't discuss any OTHER ways the tools differ, that is, differences other than the frequencies that the four tools affect. Both from what I have read and from my little test, I think that both clarity and dehaze are more than a local contrast adjustment. Adobe has indicated this for dehaze, although they don't tell us the specifics. I think it is true of clarity as well. However, I haven't yet found anything clear from Adobe about this. Since contrast adjustments in LR are done on the R, G, and B channels, increasing contrast will also increase saturation, which makes it harder to figure out.

[Clipping Path Services]

Lightroom makes it easy to process things fast.

[Manfred M]

Lightroom makes it easy to process things fast.

Sorry, this is a rather meaningless comment. The same can be said about any editing tool, not just Lightroom.

I would also suggest that high end edits take a lot of time, effort and experience. It just depends on how far one goes with the tools.

[xpatUSA]

Since contrast adjustments in LR are done on the R, G, and B channels, increasing contrast will also increase saturation, which makes it harder to figure out.

Good point, Dan. Does LR not have LAB adjustments where "contrast" is applied only to lightness, not the chroma channels?

Just askin', I know next to nothing about LR ...

[Manfred M]

Good point, Dan. Does LR not have LAB adjustments where "contrast" is applied only to lightness, not the chroma channels?

Just askin', I know next to nothing about LR ...

Not really, but kind of...

Lightroom is a parametric editor that is very much aimed at both retail (primarily wedding and portraiture) and a starting point for commercial photographers and fine art photographers who use it as a raw convertor / stepping stone to Photoshop . These photographers are generally not going to be either aware of the L* a* b* colour space or never going to work in it. These markets deals primarily in RGB while a very small segment deals in CMYK. Some of the experts might dip into L* a* b* for some ultra specialized work, where the traditional approaches are not getting them the results they are looking for.

If you peak under the covers, Lightroom does have an a* (green - magenta) slider which is referred to as "Tint" and a b* slider (blue - yellow) referred to as "Temp". The L* work is broken up across five (5) different sliders; Black, Shadows, Exposure (i.e. mid-tones), Highlights and White.

Photoshop supports traditional L* a* b* if one uses that colour space.

[DanK]

Good point, Dan. Does LR not have LAB adjustments where "contrast" is applied only to lightness, not the chroma channels?

In a word, no. All of the tonality adjustments work on the R, G, and B color channels together. Applying a curve in LR is similar to applying it in Photoshop with normal blend mode in RGB mode. AFAIK, there is no way to apply contrast only to lightness.

I almost never switch photoshop to LAB. I find that it a simpler method (simpler for me, anyway) is to switch the adjustment layers in question to a luminosity blend mode.

As Manfred points out, LR does have methods for acting on chroma without acting on lightness.