Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is incredibly powerful. Its global sliders are a convenient way to make complex adjustments to your images. For example, Clarity and Texture do similar things in different ways, while Saturation and Vibrance do the same thing to differing degrees.

Saturation 101

Every color has a saturation value, which is a measure of how intense it is. Redder reds are said to be more saturated than less red reds. Both the Saturation slider and Vibrance slider adjust the saturation of the colors in your images—they just do it slightly differently.

What Does Saturation Do?

The Saturation slider adjusts the saturation of every color in your image in the exact same way. Drag the slider to the right to increase the overall saturation of your image, and drag it to the left to reduce it.

The Saturation slider, however, is a very blunt tool. If some parts of your image are already pretty saturated, it can push them too far.

What Does Vibrance Do?

The Vibrance slider is a more nuanced version of the Saturation slider. It adjusts the saturation of the colors in your image, but it has more of an effect on the least saturated colors. The colors that are already highly saturated will barely change as you increase the vibrance.

Which Should You Use?

Both the Saturation and Vibrance sliders have a place in a photo editing workflow.

Saturation is best used carefully to add punch to your whole image. If, for example, you take some photos on a gray, cloudy day, the entire photo might need a lift.

Vibrance is a little safer to use, and I often add quite a bit to my photos. It’s great for enhancing the colors in your image without making them look garish or unrealistic.

Saturation and Vibrance can—and should—be used together. One common way is to use the Saturation slider to reduce the saturation in your image and then use the Vibrance slider to add color back to the areas that have gone a bit too gray.

You can also use them with Lightroom’s local adjustment tools to target specific areas of your image. It’s handy if you want to reduce the saturation of something distracting in the background.

As with any aspect of photo editing, the best way to understand the different tools is to use them on some of your photos. Play around with different kinds of images and see how both Saturation and Vibrance affect the colors.

What Does Clarity Do?

The Clarity slider targets mid-tone contrast. If you increase it, you’ll darken the darker middle tones of your image and brighten the brighter ones without affecting the deeper shadows or brighter highlights too much. This has the effect of making small details pop, and when dialed up a lot, it makes images look super dramatic.

Dialing Clarity down does the opposite. It flattens the mid-tones of your image, removes a lot of details, and, to be honest, tends to create a weird, ’70s, soft-focus vibe.

What Does Texture Do?

Texture started life as a skin-smoothing slider. The idea was that you’d use it to remove harsh details to make more flattering portraits. However, Adobe’s developers discovered that it was also great for increasing textural detail.

The Texture slider targets the high-frequency areas of your image. These are the places where there are lots of different, small details. It ignores low-frequency areas where things are broadly the same, like the sky or someone’s clothes.

Dialing the Texture slider up increases the prominence and contrast of the details. Dialing it down removes them.

Which Should I Use?

Clarity and Texture are complementary tools. While they can produce similar results in some images, they do it in different ways. Clarity, in general, is a lot blunter and affects the overall colors and saturation of an image, so it can easily be pushed too far. Texture is more subtle.

Most of the time, use Clarity when you:

• Want to increase the drama across your whole image.
• Want to target low-frequency areas like the sky.
• Aren’t concerned about affecting the colors in the photo, particularly if you’re working with black and white.

Use Texture when you:

• Want to remove or emphasize small details without affecting the overall look of the image.
• Want to make more natural-looking images, especially portraits.
• Don’t want to affect the colors in your image.

Remember, you can always undo any edits you make in Lightroom. The best way to determine whether Clarity or Texture will work better for your images is to just grab the sliders and play around. As you get more experienced with the tools, you’ll start to learn what each works best for.

Also, you don’t just have to use Clarity and Texture globally. Use the local adjustment tools, like the radial filter and the adjustment brush, to apply them just to the areas of your image that need it.