The easy-to-use Clarity tool is extremely helpful when editing outdoor images in Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw. In the tutorial below you’ll learn how it works, why you should consider applying positive or negative Clarity, and the circumstances in which this straightforward tool should be used.

Instructor Todd Dominey created a popular YouTube channel to share his interests in photography, travel, and creative thinking. In this 12-minute episode you’ll learn everything necessary to add the Clarity tool to your editing bag of tricks.

This video is all about editing Raw files, and Dominey explains that that Clarity is a “micro contrast” tool. He says that the key to this feature is that “it creates contrast within an image, as opposed to regular normal contrast that is applied across an image.” Don’t worry if you find this confusing because Dominey uses a gray-scale graphic to illustrate what he means.

In short, here’s the difference: When you use the conventional Contrast tool “it simply makes bright areas brighter and dark tones darker—essentially pushing them further away from one another.” Micro contrast works in a similar way but does so within the image. As Dominey explains, this means that the Clarity tool “looks for change from one tonal value to the next,” in a way that almost imparts a 3D look to an image.

If you’ve Clarity in the past, it’s likely you did so to pump up the effect. That’s what’s meant by positive clarity. But Dominey demonstrates why negative clarity can be also beneficial for certain types of images. What happens with this approach is that all of the distinct tonal values are blended together. In other words, this method is the inverse of positive clarity.

With the basics out of the way Dominey moves on to several practical examples of how he used  both types of Clarity adjustments to improve his landscape images. The image atop this page was captured in Utah on a beautiful crisp day. Unfortunately, by the time he set up his gear the clouds had moved in, obscuring the sun and spoiling the dramatic light. As you’ll see, the judicial use of positive Clarity tool enhanced the image to perfection. Now there’s noticeably more division between the various tones in the shot.

While watching the lesson you’ll see more examples of images that benefitted from both positive and negative clarity, and Dominey walks you through the simple steps required to get the job done. And contrary to what you’ve been told, it’s OK to be negative on occasion.

You can find more straightforward advice like this by visiting Dominey’s instructional YouTube channel so be sure to take a look.

And don’t miss another tutorial we posted recently that explains the best exposure modes to use for nature and wildlife photography.

This tutorial begins with a surprising self-effacing admission for someone who has been teaching and using Lightroom for years: “I’m so stupid I thought this was a Lightroom bug; but it’s actually an obscure tool.” We encourage you to watch the four-minute explanation, just in case you’ve made the same mistake.

Far from being stupid Anthony Morganti is one of our most accomplished image-editing instructors, so we should all cut him some slack and give him kudos for coming clean, especially because this useful feature is quite obscure. Morganti begins in Lightroom’s Library module, which may look a bit strange because he has all the panels closed.

By default if you have one or more panels closed and you want to temporarily it up, all you have to do is move your curser to the far left of the screen and the and there it is. You do the same thing for the top panel, the film strip at the bottom, and the panel on the right. There’s also a way to make sure that a panel is permanently visible.

If you’re working in the Develop module with all the panels closed the same behavior applies with one exception—the panel on the left. When you hover your mouse over the left side of the screen that panel remains closed. Morganti was so certain that this was a bug that he submitted a report to Adobe for clarification.

The reply he received explained that this behavior in a feature of the Develop module that Morganti overlooked. So here’s the simple trick: When you have over the left side of the screen and look closely, you’ll notice a small triangle. And when you double click on that, the panel returns.

If you want to return to a clean workspace without a visible panel on the left, simply go back and double click on the small arrow once again. Morganti says that somewhere along the line he must have inadvertently double clicked on the less-than-obvious triangle, thereby locking away the left panel.

This forgivable mistake is sort of like something most of have done ourselves, when unintentionally hitting the video button on a camera while shooting stills. Bottom line: There’s always something to learn.

Morganti’s instructional YouTube channel is loaded with helpful editing tips and tricks, so be sure to pay a visit and explore what’s available.

We also recommend watching another tutorial we posted recently, explaining how to use Lightroom’s AI Denoise tool to rehabilitate underexposed photographs.