Adobe adds texture control slider to Lightroom and Camera Raw

Adobe has just announced a brand new slider for Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Camera Raw for the first time since the addition of Dehaze in 2015. It's called Texture and can be smoothed or smoothed out. improve the textures of photos without destroying the finer details or adding noise.

The texture appeared after photographers asked for a less intense way of getting a high-quality skin smoothing in Lightroom and Camera Raw. Control began as a slider called Smoothing, but Adobe began to focus more on the idea of ​​Textures as development progressed.

"We wondered what would happen if the cursor worked in the opposite direction: can it be used to improve the texture rather than decrease it?", Max Wendt, senior computer scientist, writes on the Adobe blog. "It turned out that it was possible and it worked very well."

The texture shares similarities with existing controls. The non-destructive tool ranges from -100 to +100. On the negative side, it's "somewhere between positive clarity and sharpness," and on the negative side, it sounds like noise reduction.

Although the Sharpness option applies to the "high-frequency" areas of a photo (the edges and the finer details), Texture targets the "mid-frequency" areas.

For example, if you have a landscape shot in which you would like more definition for some shrubs, increasing the sharpness effect until the noise of the photo overwhelms the extra detail you get. However, if you activate Texture until the end, some details are improved without the noise being affected.

For smoothing the skin, apply a negative texture smooth the skin "without erasing the fine details":

Here are some other GIF files showing what Texture can do:

Here is a practical overview of the new Texture slider by Imaging resource:

"Texture and clarity are fundamentally different tools, and each has its own strengths," said Wendt. "How can you know when to use which one? The texture is ideal for making subtle adjustments to these mid-frequency features. Clarity is preferable for making stronger adjustments over a wider frequency range, including some lower frequencies.

And since both sliders target different areas, they can be used hand-in-hand to enhance photos.

"Texture is a unique control, and while it shares similarities with clarity, sharpening and even noise reduction, it does not replace any of them," Wendt said. "Do not forget that Texture is available both as a global and local control."

To start using the Texture slider, simply download the May version for Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop via Creative Cloud.