Welcome back to Edit Together Tuesdays, where I share weekly editing tutorials and tips to help you elevate your craft. This week, let's talk about the differences between the Clarity and Texture tools in Lightroom and when to use each one. I'll also share a hack to speed up your Lightroom retouching workflow.
Let's start with a basic edit to this image. Once we have our basic edit, let's look at Clarity. Clarity has been around for a while, and it works by increasing contrast in your image, mostly in the mid-tones. However, it can create a "zombie" look in portraits, which is not typically what we're going for.
That's where the Texture tool comes in. While Clarity impacts the mid-tones, the Texture tool only impacts the edge detail. This allows us to either sharpen with a natural look or soften and reduce the skin texture without changing the color or contrast of the skin. This creates a much more natural look when editing portraits of people.
Let's take a closer look at how to use the Texture tool. First, apply your basic edit to the image. Then, select the Adjustment Brush tool and bring the Texture down to -100. For our settings, we'll start with a Feather of 50, which gives us a nice soft edge without spilling onto other details. For Flow, start around 40-60 percent, depending on the image.
Now, we can begin painting on the image. I like to press "O" to bring up a mask, so I can see where I'm painting. I avoid any edge detail, such as the nose and eyebrows. We want to soften things out a bit, but still keep it looking natural.
After we have our general texture applied, we can lower the Flow to a more subtle setting. I generally go around 30, but it depends on the image. You can always adjust it up or down as needed.
The last tip I want to share is using the Adjustment Brush tool to apply the texture across multiple images. This is great if you have many images in a set and want to apply the same texture. Simply copy the settings and paste them onto the other images. Then, use the Range Mask tool to select the skin tone, and adjust the mask as needed.
That's it! This hack will help speed up your editing workflow while still achieving those creamy, soft, and beautiful skin tones that we and our clients love. Thanks for watching, and be sure to subscribe for more videos in this editing series every Tuesday.