While in the plug in, I also have the ability to control my tone levels from the blackest black to the whitest whites. This level of control becomes incredibly powerful and takes things beyond the level of a single global effect. I can then increase the contrast in other areas of the photograph to increase the contrast dramatically while maintaining the look of the micro contrast. I can increase micro contrast to bring out the details of a weathered face or pull back to smooth out blemishes. Topaz Clarity provides me the kind of control that I want to control even the small fine details of my shot, without necessarily having to do so to the rest of the image.įor example the micro contrast slider provides me the ability to control the look of skin tones where the contrast level may not be too high. I like to use it with a more subtle eye in mind. I see many photographers whose use of clarity is very aggressive, which to my eye draws far too much attention to the process rather than to the image itself. It was the only frustrating thing about my user experience. As this is a relatively new computer, I am assuming that this may be a glitch in the software that will be remedied in a software update. I had to tap the icon repeatedly in order to activate it if it did at all. The side panels can be hidden to make best use of the desktop, but in my testing, these controls performed rather sluggishly. For anyone already familiar with the interface in Adobe Lightroom, these controls will come as second nature. The effects of the sliders are immediately apparent on the image which is displayed large in the center of the workspace. The right side panel contains the fine controls including tools for controlling all levels of contrast from thigh contrast to fine-contrast. It takes less than 15 seconds to render those previews, but the software will only do it once allowing you revisit them at any point. When chosen, the software takes a few moments to create large previews that will pop out from the left giving you a good-sized view of the potential effect of the filter. The presets within each category appear below. They include fashion, nature, portrait, wedding and others. The far left column features sets of presets which are categorized into different genres of photography. Topaz Labs Clarity features a desktop design very similar to its other popular line of plug ins and bares some resemblance to the Lightroom interface. Includes a powerful mask tool for localizing effect to some or all of the image Uses intelligent contrast enhancement to increase impact and depth for a natural lookĮliminates halos and artifacts commonly associated with Clarity controlįeatures redesigned HSL control for greater control over color and density One-click effect specially developed and fine-tuned for specific types of photos. OS 10.8.5 running Adobe Lightroom 5.1 and Photoshop CC. The software can be slow or sluggish when opening or hiding the side panels Gear Used Powerful and versatile plug-in for controlling contrastġ00+ presets tailored for different types of photographyĪ masks tool to help isolate the effect on select portions of the image Cons However, when this tool is used with a heavy hand, it not only begins to not unnatural, but it also creates unwanted halos and artifacting.Įnter Topaz Labs Clarity, a software that takes this tool and provides far greater control over clarity, while eliminating that common issues of haloing and artifacting that commonly occur when the control is applied aggressively. I’m not the only one as many photographers have discovered how this one control is capable of adding a nice “pop” to photographs. Since the introduction of the Clarity slider, it’s become one of my favorite tools for controlling the finer contrast of my images.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |