Clarifying Clarity! Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom Quick Trick
I ran across this little video by Matt Kloskowski for Lightroom called “The Clarity Super Edgy Trick” but can just as easily be done in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). The following image is an example of the technique.
To get this nice grunge/HDR effect, the following steps need to be done.
- First do adjustments to image and crop size in Lightroom or ACR. Set the Clarity slider to +100 at this time.
- Select the Graduated Filter (G) (11th icon from left at top) and set just the Clarity slider set to +100 (In Lightroom go to the Effect drop-down and choose Clarity – set slider to +100).
- Click and drag at bottom of image so the top line is totally off the image. Clarity at 100% will have been applied again to the whole image. Everything above the green line in ACR or top line in Lightroom is getting the full 100% Clarity so make sure this line is dragged totally off the bottom of image. Hold SHIFT while dragging to keep the line horizontal with image and it is easier to control.
- Repeat Step 3 by creating a new Clarity Graduated Filter and do this as many times as you want. Usually this means 3 or 4 times.
If you want to apply the Clarity to just part of the image, use the Adjustment Brush set to Clarity at +100. The same brush can be applied several times by just creating New Brushes.
In the image of the cupola on the old historic courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, I started with Matt’s 70′s Look preset in Lightroom (here is the preset for ACR), applied the Clarity slider at +100 in the Basic Module, and then set two Graduated Filters with Clarity set to +100. The image was finally brought into Photoshop and a rather brown colored sky was changed to a blue color using the Color Replacement Tool Brush. (See my Tidbits blog – “Like a Chameleon-The Color Replacement Tool” on how to do this.) I added some clouds using my SJ-Cloud Brushes Set.
Do watch when applying the Clarity Slider to landscapes – a bright sky next to a treeline can look bad as it tapers away from the trees edge. Since Clarity works on contrast at the edges in the midtone areas, if you do not want the grungy look, keep your setting to 40 0r 50 and do not use this technique.
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One of my favorite shooting spots in Mesa, Arizona, is this old Buckhorn Motel in the center of town. In this case, the image was adjusted in Adobe Lightroom and the Graduated Filter was also applied twice. The image was processed using OnOne’s Perfect Layers Lightroom plug-in. In Perfect Layers, the image was duplicated with the new layer set to Screen at 52%, a Shadow Creations Another Mixed Texture Set – Texture Seattle was added as a texture layer set to Normal at 88%, and then the Masking Bug Tool was used on it to get the interesting side borders. This can all be done in Photoshop if you wanted to create this same effect without the plug-in. After opening image in Photoshop, a NIK Color Efex Pro 3.0 Tonal Contrast plug-in effect and an OnOne PhotoFrame were added to finalize the look. The tonal contrast could have been adjusted without the plug-in by using a Curves Adjustment Layer and/or Levels Adjustment Layer. Use Hue/Sat Adjustment Layer to pop the color.
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The Magnolia Tree pod image was created by applying my Vivid Drawing Look Preset in Lightroom (here is the preset for ACR) first, adjusting the exposure and clarity sliders, running the Graduated Filter three times with Clarity set to +100 and once with Clarity set to +37, and opening it up in Photoshop. Three effects were then added on separate layers to get this final result, all using NIK’s Color Efex Pro 3.0 (Tonal Contrast, Glamour Glow and Vignette Blur effects were applied – they are coming out with a new version shortly so I will report back on this when available). Sharpening and an OnOne PhotoFrame finished up the photo. It gives a very different feel from the two images above.
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With this beautiful Great Egret, Matt’s 70′s Look preset was applied (same preset as first image-link to download above). The Adjustment Brush was used to selectively apply the Clarity/Sharpening as too much tends to give the whites a very dirty look. The Adjustment Brush was used with Clarity set to +100 and Sharpen +100. I painted over the head and beak of the bird. I then applied one more new Adjustment brush and painted just the beak and eye area. The image was opened in Photoshop, and NIK Color Efex Pro 3.0 Glamour Glow (default settings) and Brilliance and Warmth effects were applied. An OnOne PhotoFrame was added and that was it. Very easy and the face is very sharp using the Clarity technique in Lightroom or ACR.
I just have too much fun trying out this technique. It is a very easy one to do and the possibilities are many. Try using a couple different settings in the Graduated Filter or Adjustment Brush. Save the Filters as presets (they can then be used for both). I have to hand it to Photoshop Guy Matt Kloskowski for coming up with this interesting technique. Give it a quick try and see what you think…..Digital Lady Syd
Trying Out the Minimalist Look?
I did not even realize there was a Minimalist Art Movement in the 1960′s – the actual art technique involves stripping away composition, detail and form. I came across this simple technique from Practical Photoshop Magazine (No. 3) and there is a 3 minute video, “Make Minimalist Art,” that goes over the simple steps to create this interesting look. Since I am not into just the plain lines, I tried to think of a few creative things to do with this technique.
To create the above image, I first opened up an image I had created using some really bright colors. This made for really interesting background colors – it reminded me of the beach so that is how I came up with the sailing theme. I found a catamaran picture I took on St. Augustine Bay with its beautiful spinnaker sail. Using the Quick Selection Tool, I cut out the boat and placed it twice in the image. On the front boat I used Topaz B&W Effects (for link to site on my Tidbits Blog) Stylized Collection Effect, Diffusion with Color preset, and adjusted the Brightness in Basic Exposure and Transparency (save this as a preset to keep track of your settings) to soften the sails edges and colors. That was basically it.
For this next image I was just fooling around to see if I could get a different pattern other than straight lines. The same background pattern was used as above, but the colors were changed in the the image to more brown and pink tones. I had a hard time finding a look I liked – I used the Warp Tool to make the lines wavy. The beautiful flower brushes are by Spring Flowers by Pink On Head. What really popped this image is that the blend mode for the wavy lines layer was set to Divide which resulted in this almost crayon like drawing effect. Very unexpected!
In this final image, a blue sky and puffy white cloud image was used for the horizontal line background, and then it was placed behind the water tank and flowers to give the appearance of water. The same sailboat selection, as created above, was filled with black to make a silhouette to place in the background. Some fog was added and the colors muted a little to give a more end-of-day feel. It is really hard to tell that the watery background was created from a bunch of lines from a sky scene.
That is about as minimalist as I get. It was a lot of fun experimenting with the different effects – a great chance to get creative. If you want to try a little different technique, but with similar results, see my Tidbits Blog “I Didn’t Know That! Randomizing Gradients.”
Have Fun Experimenting!…..Digital Lady Syd
Digital Landscape Effects with Nik Software
I have always loved Nik products. This week I decided to follow a digital workflow by a wonderful landscape artist who posted on Nik’s website a video called “Incorporating Nik Software into your Daily Workflow with Don Smith.” His blog is called Nature’s Best by Don Smith Photography if you would like more information on this great photographer.
The image of Oahu in Hawaii is an example of how Mr. Smith uses Nik software in his workflow. His basic premise is that you have to have a plan how you want to fix a landscape. The following steps indicate how the images in this blog were created using Photoshop and Nik plug-ins.
- Crop and do a basic exposure adjustment in Lightroom or ACR – the image will appear a little flat in Photoshop.
- Look critically at image and decide what needs to be fixed. Check out the sky for noise, the foreground, middle ground and background for areas that need to be color corrected. Look at the shadows and highlights in image.
- Open up the Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 plug-in and select the Tonal Contrast Effect. Just the default setting can make an image look much better. Move the Midtones slider – if it looks too harsh, move slider to the left a little. To keep other areas like the sky from being affected by this change, put a minus U-point in a couple places in the sky to protect the area and set the opacity to 0. (Click Alt on U-point to duplicate the one set down and drag to move.) When finished, click the OK button to go back into Photoshop.
- If part of the image needs some additional contrast, open the Nik Viveza plug-in (a powerful plug-in to selectively control color and light in your photographs) and set a U-point in that area. (This can be done in Photoshop using a Curves or Levels Adjustment Layer, but it is harder since layer masks need to be utilized.) Whatever is under that point will be affected by the adjustment sliders in the circle created. Just the Brightness slider may be all that is needed to darken the area a bit. This can be done a global basis if the whole image needs some change. Click OK and go back to Photoshop.
- Next go back and apply Nik Color Efex Pro Brilliance and Warmth. I created a Good Basic Setting preset that I use on almost all my images and is very similar to what Mr. Smith uses. I set Brilliance at 62% and Warmth at 57%.
- Now sharpen image. I usually just duplicate the image and apply a High Pass filter set to Soft Blend or Hard Blend mode. If it is overly sharpened, use a layer mask and paint out where it is too sharp or if the whole image is too sharp, just lower the layer opacity. Nik Sharpener Pro is a good plug-in that I do not own.
- If there is noise in the image, Nik Dfine 2.0 Noise can be used. Since I do not own this plug-in, I go back into ACR using Dr. Brown’s ACR script and clean up the noise in the Detail-Noise Reduction panel – adjust the Luminance and Detail sliders. (See my Fun Photoshop Blog “Edit Layers with ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) Script on how to do this.”) This does a great job of getting rid of the noise.
This image is of Iolani Palace State Monument in the middle of Honolulu, Hawaii on Oahu. It is another example of following the steps above pretty closely, except I did used Nik Viveza twice – once to tone down the green foreground color but leaving the palm trees the bright green; then back in to give the sky a little more blue tone. This was done before sharpening and noise reduction.
Cloud Brushes, some pretty fluffy clouds were also painted in. A composite layer was made above (ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+E) and then the workflow was followed. I did use Viveza to increase the contrast on the bat and the roof areas only.
For another example of this workflow, see my Tidbits blog, “Straightening with Puppet Warp,” where these steps were followed after the puppet warp effect was applied.
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Nik has come out with a new version of Color Efex Pro (NIK Color Efex Pro 4 – Digital Lady Syd’s Review!). I am looking forward to trying out their new effects since they have done such a wonderful job with all their plug-ins. I can honestly say they are the fastest plug-ins to apply and my computer never has a problem processing them when added to an image. That in itself is a great feature since most plug-ins are so RAM hungry. If you have not tried out the Nik products, definitely download their trial versions, especial Color Efex Pro. There are so many things you can do with just this one plug-in that it is amazing. Try them out – you will not be disappointed!…..Digital Lady Syd
Related articles
- Nik Software Announces Color Efex Pro 4 (prweb.com)
Topaz B&W Effects Plug-In – A Real Winner!
I will start off and say I am a major fan of Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 so I was not expecting anything as good. Still I have always felt Topaz does a great job for us budget-minded Photoshoppers and they have not let us down with this plug-in! These guys just keep making better and better plug-ins and still keep their prices reasonable. (Click on my Tidbits Blog for a link to Topaz and this new black and white plug-in – they have a 30-day free trial to download, and my short blog called “Topaz B&W Effects vs. Nik’s Silver Efex Pro.”)
The above image was just a basic black-and-white conversion using the Traditional Collection and the Classic preset. Go to the Conversion section on the right and adjust exposure and color to enhance your picture and finally go to the Local Adjustments sections where the best part of the program lies (in my view). You can locally correct the image using a Dodge, Burn, Color (brings color back into the image slightly if you want), Detail (I love this one – like Structure in Nik) and Smooth brush; and you have an Overall Strength slider to increase the effect and a layer mask to see how it is being applied. If you mess up, just switch to the Erase Brush and remove while viewing the mask. This gives similar results to the localized points that Nik has (and which is why everyone loves Nik). It is interesting to see how Topaz has come at this same result from a totally different direction and it seems to work beautifully!
For this image, the Opalotype Collection Effect-Yellowing Lilac preset was the starting point, but major adjustments were made in the right hand sections and this is the final result. I love the partially tinted feel – it really felt like Arizona did that day (it was 110 degrees outside). This is why this program has a lot more to offer than Nik’s plug-in which is essentially a black and white plug-in. In Nik’s defense, their Color Efex Pro plug-in probably does cover what the rest of the this filter is doing.
If you find some settings you really like, be sure to save them as a preset so they appear in the list for the collection you were using. I always put an SJ in front of the ones I create so I know which ones they are. There are a couple of things I do not love. For one, in the Finishing Touches section the Vignette is a little hard to apply, and it cannot be applied in different colors. I do like the Edge Exposure option which frames the image really nicely (like in the image above), but I do not care for the Border option. I do not usually use a plain white or black border around an image, so I will be going back to my old stand-by OnOne’s PhotoFrame for this. One of the best parts is the Transparency option with the Overall Transparency slider to bring back some of the image color without having to go back into Photoshop and change blend modes.
Here are a couple more examples of what I did rather quickly in Topaz and got some really different results.
Below is an example of an image with the overall Transparency adjusted so you can see some of the color come back in. I believe it is a very pretty effect and has a bit of vintage look to it.
As you can see, there are a lot of variations to this plug-in and I have not even begun to explore all the options. I do believe Topaz has hit a winner here and will keep most Photoshop lovers busy with all kinds of creative results. I am happy to see this company take on the big guys once again and create what I think is a great new plug-in for a reasonable price! Thank you Topaz! ……Digital Lady Syd
