#edited on lightroom

[lil-shiro]

[Montreal, April 22: in three pictures]

[manny-jacinto]

MANNY JACINTO for Square Mile Magazine (2024)

[ellieabbyy]

[bu99erfly]

aespa Hot Mess, 2024

[nomaptomyowntreasure]

[tiredsilverfox]

Close up of my new pfp bc why not

[nefja]

When you don't have your camera with you but the light is amazing...

[zetasxphotos]

Shadow-Dappled Leaves in the midst of fall 🍂

[thephotograffe]

Kielder forest & lake in Northumberland, United Kingdom

[sirfrogsworth]

A Scam... Tutorial?

I was watching Photoshop tutorials and YouTube recommended this video to me.

And I was already skeptical. Clarity is an extremely powerful and useful adjustment in Lightroom and Photoshop and I could not think of a reason why anyone would recommend *not* using it to the extent they were using ALL CAPS.

But I was curious if there was a new technique I was unaware of. It's impossible to know everything regarding Photoshop and I learn new stuff all the time.

So I gave the video a chance.

To quote my late father... what a crock of shit.

I have seen a few scam videos in my time, but I cannot think of ever seeing a digital art tutorial scam. I found myself angry and a strongly worded comment just flew out of my brain.

I continued...

"First, no one should use clarity and texture at 100%. And I think showing the effects at 100%, as if that is a normal workflow, is highly misleading. You are creating a problem that does not exist and then offering a solution to it. And then you are using a provocative title to attract clicks. Not to mention you may be convincing beginners to abandon clarity and texture altogether when it is one of Camera Raw/Lightroom's most powerful tools. People should absolutely use clarity and texture. That is a crazy thing to tell people.

Second, high pass sharpening is… old school. It works but it can create a lot of nasty artifacts if overdone. (Personally I find it too crunchy and prefer smart sharpen on a smart object so it is non destructive). Clarity and texture are much more modern approaches to help bring out detail and I find they actually produce *fewer* artifacts than typical sharpening filters/techniques. And if you have trouble with clarity or texture adjustments in the bokeh areas, then use a local adjustment that doesn't affect those areas. You can even do a separate clarity and texture layer and use the opacity slider and the blend if and masking just like you did with the high pass. Why are you acting like you can only make a global clarity adjustment?

Essentially you are giving a worst case scenario of a clarity/texture adjustment just so you can make your technique seem like it is orders of magnitude better.

And what is even more infuriating is that you can do clarity/texture AND you can do high pass sharpening *together*. Why are you acting like it is one or the other?

I'm so confused by your motivations. Did you invent this clarity problem just so you could make a click bait-y title so you can then sell your little panel thing? And then you used an old school sharpening technique that many have abandoned so it seems like you have secret knowledge that was lost? And I could argue it isn't even a better solution. It's just a different way to achieve similar, if not worse results.

This is like if you put a pound of sugar in lemonade and then said, "Wow, this is way too sweet! You should try my superior lemonade that has a normal amount of high fructose corn syrup."

Lastly, if clarity and texture (set at a reasonable amount) aren't enough to produce sharp, detailed results, then it might be worth considering your actual photography techniques. Modern photography with modern sensors and lenses should be able to produce extremely sharp results without having to juice the hell out of sharpening filters in software. 20% clarity and texture (if that) plus a little bit of smart sharpen is usually more than enough to bring out detail in almost all of my photos and I have never been accused of having soft images.

So, if you are getting soft results, you might need to adjust how you are capturing your images. Are you using a very small aperture like f/22 on that macro image? That could be a diffraction issue. Perhaps it would be better to use a larger aperture at the lens's sweet spot and then do a focus stack.

I mean, I can't think of any other reason a person would need to do 100% clarity and texture unless they completely bungled the actual photography or were still using a kit lens.

I'm sorry but this video is a mess."

Let's look a little closer at what he did to his example.

He started with this.

Then he applied clarity & texture to MAXIMUM. Which, again, is like adding a pound of sugar to lemonade.

And by golly, it looks pretty bad!

Then he used his secret ancient high pass technique to get this.

Which looks a hell of a lot like the unsharpened image to me. And the high pass sharpening is probably only visible when zoomed in to 100% on the full resolution image.

Which is one of the issues with this technique. It isn't even noticeable on social media—the place where the majority of photos are viewed these days.

And then after showing you this groundbreaking effect that does almost nothing, he tries to sell you his Photoshop panel.

Yes, that' looks intuitive. Just hit the blue checkmark to do... something?

And what is this green eyeball with a crescent moon inside?

Only $50!

And if you want to know what the purple X button does, you need to pay another $15 for the tutorial on how to use it.

Neat.

Just to prove this is all a scam I'd like to show you an example of my own.

Here is a picture of Otis with no clarity, texture, or sharpening applied.

And here is a reasonable amount of sugar. I set the clarity and texture to where I felt they looked best.

Wow, that looks better. Not only that, you can actually see the difference at social media resolutions!

Now let's add a pound of sugar. MAXIMUM CLARITY GO!

Yep, that looks a bit rough. Because no one does this ever.

And now let's see his high pass sharpening technique.

Barely a difference on social media.

Okay, let's try zooming in 200%. Maybe that will give the high pass sharpening the victory.

Normal...

Reasonable clarity & texture...

FULL BEANS CLARITY & TEXTURE!

High pass...

Just as I said, the high pass introduces crunchy sharpening artifacts.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I much prefer the subtle clarity and texture. Perhaps the details in the eyeballs aren't quite as crispy, but in the version that isn't zoomed in, I don't think you feel like the image is soft and the normal clarity and texture adjustment added contrast and actually noticeable detail to the image.

In the end, except for the pound of sugar, these are all subtle adjustments and other photographers might be the only ones who would ever notice. The original Otis picture was probably fine to most people. So disparaging the clarity slider was even more unnecessary.

Why does this matter?

Being a beginner at photography is frustrating. There are so many resources to choose from and it's very difficult to know who is competent and who you can trust. If someone just starting out was recommended this video they could be easily be convinced it is legit. And it could set them back in their progress because they think useful tools will actually make their photos worse. They will waste a lot of time doing a time consuming old school technique in Photoshop when they probably never needed to even leave Lightroom in the first place. They could move two sliders to get similar or better results and it would only take literal seconds.

Time is valuable to a lot of people. And he seems intent on wasting everyone's time. And what sucks is that I have no real way of exposing this dude on a scale that would do anything.

I also just really hate the idea that educational content is being used to scam people.

This is some PragerU shit right here.

[ytelovski]

[ellieabbyy]

[vicknanda]

[pnwander]

Hey friends! ICYMI, I was asked to share some before & after walkthroughs, so I thought I'd start with Cheveyo the bald eagle (original post here). This is an older edit, but I had it on hand, and it speaks to a little bit of everything that was asked for (in-camera & post).

BEFORE

✱ KIT Panasonic GH6 + LEICA DG 100-400 ✱ SHUTTER 1/125 sec ✱ APERTURE f/4.8 ✱ ISO 12800

WHAT'S ALL THIS, THEN?

I took this at Northwest Trek's Hoot 'n Howl event, meaning this is late in the evening, very low light, with the widest aperture I could get under the circumstances. I did bring my tripod but felt bad about pulling it out given the kids all around, so I held my breath and shot this handheld. All of which is to explain my buckwild ISO of 12800. I normally cap it at 6400.* *if none of that made any sense, and you'd like it to, check the cut at the end of this post. So we've got a whole bunch of noise, and some pretty lackluster lighting, but sharpness could be worse:

We used to have to deal with ISO noise manually in Photoshop. These days, I like Lightroom's Denoise button pretty well, within limits, and that's what I used here. Sometimes Topaz Sharpen and/or Denoise can also help, though with fur and feathers it can get sort of smooshy and odd.

EDITS

Curves for that sort of cinematic look; color grading to taste. That's pretty much it here. I did a lot of desaturating in greens/blues to make Cheveyo pop, along with some color grading in the shadows and midtones. Some people hate this look, but I'm less interested in how the camera captured it than how it felt at the time. YMMV! Throw on a gradient mask to brighten her up and draw the eye where we want it, and I would normally add another mask around the iris, but apparently I didn't find it necessary this time. And we're done!*

AFTER

*But remember that I'm simplifying the edit for the sake of clarity. I usually start with one of my baseline presets that I've made for myself, and then I tinker with it a while. Just play around with the edit til you're happy. It's not always linear.

Feel free to send any questions to my ask box! I try to catch tags & comments, but there's always a risk they'll get buried in my notifications. Let me know if there's any shot in particular you'd like me to deconstruct next! 🤍

under the cut: CAMERA SETTINGS ANNOTATED

✱ KIT Panasonic GH6 + LEICA DG 100-400 This means: I'm using a really long lens. I shot this at 161mm. The widest aperture I can get at that zoom is f/4.8, and shooting handheld makes me less steady, risking an out of focus shot. ✱ SHUTTER 1/125 sec I was in Aperture Priority mode (AP), so this setting was automatically adjusted by the camera according to the ambient light available. It's as high as it is because my aperture is as wide as it is and because my ISO is as high as it is. ✱ APERTURE f/4.8 The lower the number ("f-stop"), the wider the lens opening, the more light gets in. More light = faster shutter speed & a lower ISO = less noise, less risk of motion blur. Also a shallower depth of field. If you think of aperture like an eyeball, if you're at f/1.2, your eyes are absolutely bugging out and you can practically see in the dark. At f/22, you are squinting like your life depends on it. People tend to confuse this because they think a "bigger" number (f/22) should mean "wider." Instead, think of it like that your eyeball is 22% closed, versus 1.2% closed. This is not real camera math, but it can help you remember. ✱ ISO 12800 The higher the ISO, the greater your sensor's sensitivity to light. A higher ISO increases your shutter speed, reducing the risk of motion blur. On a bright sunny day, your ISO, if set to auto, might be 100. Anything over about 1600-3200, depending on the camera, starts to risk ISO noise, which has to be handled in post. Sometimes it can't be fixed, so you want your ISO only as high as it has to be to get the shot. (I'm in my office right now, pointing my camera at my bookshelf. If I manually adjust my ISO to 100, my shutter speed drops to 1/2 sec. At ISO 6400, my shutter speed is 1/200 sec.)

My camera is usually capped at 6400, because it's built for that to be okay, if not ideal. This means that my camera will read the light situation and decide what my ISO should be, but it will not go over 6400 unless I tell it to. For this shoot, I turned it up because I was photographing animals at night.

TL;DR: Shoot in Aperture Priority, as wide open as possible, with ISO on auto or set to something high that you know your camera can handle, for a low-light shot of a subject that is moving little, if at all.

[keepinit-g]

Playing with some lightroom edits 😅

[gametastic-photography]

☆★I like stars★☆