While remaining faithful to the original scene, some simple adjustments to RAW images can give you a more satisfying final picture.

As photographers we aim for excellence in every shot, eliminating or minimizing the need for any adjustments in the computer afterwards. Even so, modern software can often improve on what we bring home from the field, and it is worth checking what we can achieve by tweaking a few basic controls.

The Clarity Slider

The clarity, vibrance and saturation controls in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom can be especially useful. The sliders appear close together on the basic control panels and, used in combination, can nicely boost the impact of your shots.

The clarity slider increases local contrast within the image. This is different from adjusting the overall contrast, which will change all the pixels within certain brightness ranges regardless of where they are within the image. Instead, the clarity slider will change only those pixels that are near others that have significantly different tones.

In other words, the clarity control most affects parts of the image that have the most detail, an effect similar to using an unsharp mask.

And as for the unsharp mask, the effect can easily be overdone, resulting in the appearance of darkening in the places that have the most intricate details. Zoom in to 100 percent and use a light touch on the controller to make sure the clarity slider does not introduce unsightly artifacts.

Enhancing Saturation

The saturation slider allows you to increase or decrease the degree of saturation of the colours in the image. Sometimes referred to as the purity of the colour, saturation measures the proportion of grey in relation to the hue. A 100 percent saturated colour lies at the outer edge of the standard colour wheel, with no grey component.

The saturation slider can be helpful in boosting the impact of some pictures. But it is a blunt instrument and affects the whole range of colours within the image equally. Taken too far, it can all too easily destroy the subtleties of the picture and produce an unnatural, cartoon-like result.

More Vibrant Colours

The vibrance slider also boosts saturation levels, but it does so selectively, having most effect on the colours that are least saturated and with a negligible effect on colours that are already close to saturation. It too can be over-used, but its subtle but noticeable effects are well worth exploring in order to produce a faithful but more “punchy” picture.

The vibrance slider is therefore an especially valuable addition to the digital photographer’s toolbox.

Examples

The original version of the attached shot of the beach has quite subdued colours so we can safely enhance it with the saturation slider, in this case at 35 percent. Adding 50 percent on the clarity slider also helps, especially in the level of detail in the clouds.

The harbour shot already includes some bright colours that could easily become over-saturated and unreal, so the vibrancy slider (20%) will give a better result, together with the clarity slider (30 %).

Targetting the Effects

Beyond the basic level you can restrict your changes of saturation to specific colours, through the Hue, Saturation and Luminance (HSL) sliders, or separately for highlights and shadows through the Split Toning panels.

These more sophisticated controls allow you to introduce some interesting effects. The example in the final attached picture shows the harbour with yellow, green, blue and aqua fully desaturated, retaining just red, orange, purple and magenta within a greyscale image.

It’s fun, but you can soon stray a long way from the original, natural image and into the realms of digital art rather than landscape photography. Before going too far, be sure that is what you want.