Topaz clarity masks2/27/2023 ![]() ![]() 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. After using it on a few of my images I found older ones to look flat and not crisp enough and had to rerun many of them through this filter.Since the introduction of the Clarity slider, it’s become one of my favorite tools for controlling the finer contrast of my images. It’s so great that I don’t use Lightroom’s Clarity slider any more! No need for that.īut be warned! Using Topaz Clarity is really addictive. If you want to see this filter in action, make sure to watch my video from HDR step-by-step series, where I use it to increase clarity of my tone-mapped image. After loading my image in Photoshop after tone-mapping it in Photomatix Pro, one of the first things I recently do is to add some clarity using this plug-in. Summing up Topaz Clarity is a really great filter which became very important to my post-processing workflow no matter whether I post-process landscape or architecture photos. I also found some small bugs here and there (like a crash on startup or some cryptic message when I tried to increase size of settings panel) but other than that I found no serious issues. For me the filter sometimes appeared to be running quite slow, especially when it generated thumbnails for the presets (on startup on when changing presets category). But are there any drawbacks? Sure, there is no rose without a thorn. So far I sound like being very excited about this plugin. Here (I recommend viewing in large to see what I’m talking about) clarity was greatly improved, especially in the water and buildings areas. This way you can see how much it improves the look of your photos. Topaz Clarity allows comparing adjustments to the original image. As you paint your mask with a brush Topaz Clarity automatically detects edges and doesn’t affect them. You don’t want to increase clarity in the clear sky? No problem, just mask it out using edge (or colour) aware masking. Topaz Clarity lets you limit clarity changes to the selected region only by providing some masking features.Īnother great thing about this plugin is that it comes with basic masking features. This makes it really easy to get started. And if you still can’t work out how it all works, fear not as Topaz Clarity comes with a large collection of presets for various occasions ranging from landscapes to weddings. And if you don’t just move your mouse over any control and textual help will appear – very helpful. UI is also very easy and intuitive so after just a few clicks you’ll figure out what’s going on. User interface is similar to other Topaz products with presets on the left and settings on the right of the preview image (you can hide both panels to increase your preview area in case you need this). Exactly what you would expect from a plugin increasing clarity. Īnd the results are truly impressive with just a few clicks. I usually just change values of Micro Contrast and Low Contrast Sliders – other 2 (named Medium Contrast and High Contrast) I leave at default values. It makes it very flexible as this way you have much more control over the way clarity is applied to your photos. Instead of a single slider, Topaz Clarity offers as many as 4 sliders, each of them targetting different contrast variations – from very low variations to large ones. User interface in Topaz Clarity is very simple and intuitive with presets on the left and settings sliders on the right. It’s pretty powerful, isn’t it? Well, it is but Topaz Clarity puts increasing clarity to a completely different level. If you’re familiar with Lightroom than you definitely know about Clarity slider in it. What this filter does is increasing (or decreasing) clarity of the image. Recently Topaz added a new tool to their impressive collection, named Topaz Clarity. Apart from Photomatix, Lightroom and Photoshop which I use virtually every time, there is a bunch of other tools that are important to my workflow although I don’t use them for all images.Īmong such tools are filters from T opaz Labs including Topaz Adjust and Topaz Detail. In this case I also used Topaz Clarity to add some pop to the image.Īs you could realize, I use a lot of tools during my post-processing. ![]()
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