Stop Using Clarity Like This In Post-Processing and How to Do It Better

The times of oversaturating and selective coloring might be over, but clarity is here to pick up where those post-processing horrors left of. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that clarity is an amazing effect that can do wonders on your images… just not if you use it on the whole image and crank it to the max. I realize, that seeing this sudden increase in drama and grittiness might feel satisfying to some but too often has it used in attempts to turn uninteresting photos into something that they are not.

Take a look at the example below. All I did to the raw image was turned up the clarity. While it certainly packs more of a punch than the original, it became a chaotic mush of over contrasted lines. The first impression is dramatic but the viewer gets no clue on what the point of the image is.

One suggestion that gets thrown around in the photography world over and over again is to simplify your images, and for a good reason. You want to tell a story and telling a story necessitates cutting the clutter. This not only applies to the process of taking a picture on location but also to post-processing.

The picture above shows the second officer of a cargo ship steering the vessel from inside the machine room with no visuals on what is in front of him. He receives his instructions for steering through the headset. In the photo, I wanted to capture the intensity of the moment; the officer’s concentration, the pressure and heat in the machine room, and the chaotic, mechanic aspect of the ship. While you might be able to read this from the image now that I told you my intentions, the clarity-only edit certainly did not do a good job in conveying it beforehand.

In order to get the point across, I went over the image a second time, keeping my goal in mind. Here is the final edit of the picture below.

Even though I still used clarity (I actually cranked it up relatively high), the image is way more focused because I used it selectively. And while applying clarity to the whole image is certainly the easiest way to go, doing it better is actually almost as simple. Here is how you do it.

How To Use Clarity Selectively

1. Duplicate your image

2. Select the newly created layer and go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter...

3. Set the clarity. Don't be afraid to go too high, just experiment a little here. Click "OK."

4. Create a mask.

5. While the mask is selected, invert it (command+i).

6. Select the brush tool (B) and paint over the areas you want to apply clarity to with white.

In this case, I applied clarity to the officer's face and the tubes in front of him to bring out the sweat and the texture of the ship.

The final image which I showed you before has some additional tweaks to it. If you are interested in knowing what those are, leave me a comment.