Add weight to a flat photo by raising midtone contrast locally rather than globally. Clarity compares every pixel to a blurred copy of its neighborhood and pushes it away from that average, so broad structures gain separation while the overall exposure stays put.
Clarity vs sharpening
Both work on local contrast; the difference is scale. A sharpen filter operates at a radius of 1 to 3 pixels and targets edges. Clarity operates at a radius measured in percent of the image size, so a 24-megapixel photo and its 1200px preview receive the same visual treatment. Use sharpen to recover fine detail after resizing; use clarity to give midtones structure.
Radius
Radius decides what counts as “local”. At low values the effect concentrates on texture: bark, gravel, knitwear. At high values it starts shaping light itself, separating a subject from its background the way a dodge-and-burn pass would. If halos appear around high-contrast edges, the radius is too large for the amount.
Tonal focus
The adjustment is weighted toward midtones by design, since pushing local contrast in deep shadows amplifies noise and in highlights it clips. The tonal focus slider tunes that weighting: at 0 the effect applies evenly across the tonal range, at the default 50 it tapers off toward black and white, and at 100 it stays tightly inside the midtones.
Softening with negative values
Negative clarity runs the same math in reverse, pulling pixels toward their neighborhood average. Texture flattens but edges and color survive, which is why it reads as a controlled glow rather than a blur. Between -20 and -40 works for skin; beyond that, images take on a deliberate dreamy cast.