I recently started to shoot some subjects with the intent of experimenting with various post processing techniques for the final output. I do all of my image post processing in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and have been experimenting with various saturation, contrast, and clarity settings. When you are working in the develop module you are shown the following options for processing a photo (on right.)

There are many sources on the net that go into great detail about how to use the develop module in Lightroom. Jon McCormak wrote a good overview article on the basic options each slider gives you in the develop module. I have listed additional resources at the bottom of this post.

My plan was to take various plant and foliage photos to experiment with different techniques on post processing.

In the following photos I didn't change the color saturation. I pumped up the blacks above normal and went with a negative 100 on the clarity slider. I also increased the overall contrast of the image.

One thing to keep in mind is that the clarity slider works on the contrast of the mid-tones of your image. The contrast slider works on the contrast range for the entire image. So with these settings I was effectively reducing the contrast of the image in the mid-tones via the clarity slider. I then increased the overall contrast with the contrast slider. This effect essentially increases the contrast in the shadows and highlights and leaves the mid-tones soft. When I pump up the saturation of the blacks I'm also increasing the contrast levels of the dark parts of the image. You can see this effect in the two images below.


For the next set of images I pumped up the blacks again to increase the shadow contrast. I also increased the vibrance which adds more saturation to the non-predominant colors in the scene. Finally I went with a 100% positive on the clarity slider. This combined effect gives the images a look of punch and sharpness.