Lightroom sharpness and clarity

[GTG]

I admit to being lazy and never actually seeking any tutorial or training videos for lightroom and have always just pushed sliders to my own taste or lack of.

Anyway of particular interest is using the various sharpness sliders and clarity.

Any advice on using these well or should I just seek youtube tutorials and websites etc

 

[Justin Case]

Clarity for a long time had some little problems: it tended to create halo around edges and also would give a bit of "dirty " look in the midtones.
The algorithm has improved a lot in the last two version of LR Classic, now it gives a nice boost to contrast in the midtones and it is actually a useful, subtle tool.
Sharpness is dangerous and has to be used very sparingly in Lightroom, many people prefer to apply it in a localised way in Photoshop.
I have made a video on Clarity in Lightroom, I hope you find it useful:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhpVXYOVeP4

 

[Mikesphotaes]

Much better having a wee look on youtube, Dave.

Basically, less is more!

Once you get the hang of it, you can set up presets so you can have an instant settings.

I had some for bike racing, portraits etc. etc.

 

[Harlequin565]

Clarity is a bit of a hammer approach to getting sharpness and IMO is more a localised contrast adjustment. Great for web use, but for prints, IMO it spoils them with over-use. My experience finds that it just blobbily increases edge contrast rather than actual sharpness (from a perception point of view)

So if you want to add edge contrast/definition, Clarity is great, but if you want to add actual sharpness, then using the sharpness setting is better.

Select image > zoom to 100% > Adjust sharpness amount/radius/detail slider to taste > Hold ALT & adjust masking slider to apply shaprness to *only* the edges I want sharp. Job done.

It's very easy to over-sharpen and some websites/browsers like to add even more (I'm looking at you Flickr) hence MIke's "less is more" approach. Although I shoot with different settings quite a bit, so I don't have presets,

 

[john.margetts]

Sharpening: pressing the Option/Alt key while moving the masking slider allows you to select what will be sharpened - from everything to very little.

 

[Gaz J]

I regard sharpening in LR just as an input sharpener. When I sharpen for print I use NIK output sharpening and adjust as necessary there.