Lightroom Texture Tool Tutorial

An essential guide to using the texture slider in Lightroom

Wondering what to use the texture slider for inside of Lightroom? Inside this video tutorial you’ll learn how and when to use the texture tool inside Adobe Lightroom

There are 3 great editing techniques you can achieve using the Lightroom Texture Tool:

1. Recover out of focus details
2. Portrait retouching / softening & unsharpening skin
3. Enhancing the depth of field of your image / increasing subject isolation

Inside this Lightroom Texture Tool Tutorial you’ll learn some quick editing techniques and tricks that only the texture slider can do! Learn what the difference is between texture vs clarity vs sharpening and when to use them. Edit better photos, enhance details, recover out of focus images and touch up portraits all using the Lightroom Texture Tool inside this quick tutorial for Adobe Lightroom.

So there you have it – 3 ways to use the texture tool to enhance your photography edits inside of Lightroom

What do you think? Can you come up with any other uses for this super handy lightroom tool?

Now its your turn – Go out and edit!

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hey guys Ryan here at signature edits
and inside this Lightroom quick trick
I’m going to show you two awesome ways
you can use the texture tool in
Lightroom to enhance your images and
give them extra impact let’s do it
[Music]
alright so you can find the texture tool
inside of Lightroom in your develop
module right over here in this very top
panel and you can see that it’s
basically doing what it says it adds
texture or takes away texture in your
image but how does it work and what’s
the difference between that and clarity
and D haze and sharpening okay I’m glad
you asked D haze well we’re not going to
get into that too much but just suffice
it to say that it’s really aimed towards
adding contrast back to your image or
taking it away if there’s too much
contrast most of the time you’re just
adding it if for example you have a lens
flare going on and things are just too
hazy well that’s what you use yeah
clarity on the other hand is going to
enhance lines of contrast so let’s start
by just brightening this image a little
bit adding a basic preset here okay
that’s looking fine close enough we zoom
in and look at the shadow between these
two fingers all right clarity is going
to look for lines of contrast so this
shadow versus the brightness of her
finger and it’s going to enhance that
both by making the brighter parts
brighter the darker parts darker the
saturated parts more saturated the less
saturated parts less saturated it’s
enhancing everything in every way it’s
very extreme so that’s what I really
want to get across as I bring up the
contrast you’re going to see the darks
in between the fingers are getting
darker and the lights in her fingers are
getting brighter likewise it’s also
decreasing the saturation in her fingers
and adding saturation elsewhere where it
thinks there already is okay so
obviously that is going to look very
very overdone over edited whereas we
take up the texture is going to be a lot
more subtle now how do we use this
practically what are some tools the
first thing that I want to show you is
what you can do with the texture brush
if your image is slightly out of focus
so for example her left eye is well I
guess it’s her right eye is mostly in
focus here but the right really isn’t at
all so let’s say we were just trying to
correct something like that and this is
the first tip I have for you and it’s
what I find is the most helpful thing I
do with texture brush I use this all the
time in my image is slightly out of
focus I just take the texture brush and
I take that texture up and bam her eye
more or less
looks pretty darn close right now this
might not be a perfect job but let’s
just compare it to if we were to use the
clarity for example and try and do the
same thing so here’s clarity right it’s
just it’s making it way too dark and
squishy and weird and it would never
work you could maybe do it more subtly
but then you can hardly even make a
difference here’s before and after
clarity so there is some progress but
really we’re not fixing the sharpening
issue we could also try and take the
sharpness up but because our photo
wasn’t sharp to begin with on the eye
it’s really just going to bring out more
noise and not really do a very good job
again here’s before sharpening and after
sharpening hardly any difference at all
now if we take the texture brush however
and we drag that sucker up you can see
that without it looking super affected
it’s not looking like we’ve done a whole
lot but it is way sharper it’s brought
out detail that would have been
completely lost and I’m finding this is
rescuing me all the time inside of
Lightroom when I have a photo that I
just I love the photo but it’s out of
focus or one person is out of focus in a
portrait or something like that that is
an amazing tool just giving you another
example here is a recent shoot that I
did at an engagement party and you can
see this couple the gentleman on the
right here just isn’t in focus now if I
were to brush on his face with some
clarity
you can see how horrendous this looks
it’s really not going to fix the problem
even if I dial it back it just it looks
overdone and previously that’s about all
I could do because sharpness isn’t going
to sharpen something that was never
sharp to begin with you can see it’s
just kind of exaggerating the noise in
the photo now if I take the texture up
however you can see that Wow all of this
detail that really wasn’t in his face is
now being added back it’s like we have
this magic sharpening tool that can
rescue us when we miss focus so here is
before and here is after as you can see
it’s a crazy amount of detail that we’re
recovering something we wouldn’t have
been able to do without this texture
brush okay so let me show you another
way that we can use this first I’m going
to just add it to both eyes something
like that and I’m going to do a little
trick here lower the contrast a little
bit and raise the whites not a whole
time but just a little and that’s going
to add a little bit of pop to this area
of the image right so see how much her
eyes are popping in that we’ve done that
now you always want to zoom out that
might be way too intense when we
actually look at it in
but look at how much texture obviously
and sharpening we’ve added to her eyes
in fact this I pre adding that
adjustment looks pretty much on sharp
really it’s not even in focus compared
to afterwards so it’s very very powerful
now what are some other ways that we can
use this obviously we can use it for
softening skin kind of the opposite of
what you’d think adding texture we can
also take away texture which is
softening right so we can zoom in one to
one or two to one on her face here and
because this image was also already kind
of out of focus on her skin we don’t
have a lot of imperfections she has
beautiful nice skin so this isn’t going
to be as exaggerated but let’s say that
you had more unflattering light on a
portrait you had more lines underneath
the eyes or wrinkles whatever it is this
can be a super powerful tool we’re just
going to reset our brush here take the
texture down and I’ll just really
exaggerate it so you see what I’m doing
here and we’ll just brush everywhere
that we don’t want to keep the texture
so all the imperfections in her skin we
can take care of really really easily
super super handy now that might might
have been obvious to you you might have
been like oh that show me something new
show me something more significant well
have you ever thought about the fact
that you can maybe use this over the
entire background of an image to make
your subject pop even more so for
example we can go to our global
adjustments on the entire image and take
our texture down on everything okay now
we’re going to go back to our adjustment
brush and we are going to add in the
texture that we just took away from our
subjects we’re just going to paint
really roughly here for the sake of time
and you can see that it doesn’t look
like we’re over editing her because all
we’re doing is just kind of cancelling
out that first effect all right so go
ahead paint that on and now let’s make a
virtual copy so we can see the
difference between before and after so
I’m going to delete this brush and I
will reset my texture adjustment and now
you can look at the background and the
separation between the subject and the
background between this photo and this
photo alright so it was pretty subtle so
let me show you again in case you missed
it watch this bench area behind her if I
go to photo number one and now after we
take away the texture from the
background you see how much of a jump
there is in the background how it really
just makes it so much more creamy and
nice to look at that’s the kind of
difference you can get with this texture
brush and
really really subtle and easy to apply
way now this particular photo there was
already great separation between the
subject and the background I would
expect that this effect would be even
more exaggerated in other situations
where you don’t have that kind of depth
of field going on already so that’s how
you can use the texture brush to enhance
your photos you can really clean up skin
by lowering the texture and just
softening that skin removing wrinkles
you can also use it to get text your
back and sharpening back in areas of
your image that perhaps weren’t sharp to
begin with so for example we’ll reset
this add our texture and try and get
some sharpening back in this hair that
was out of focus perfect and places that
I would add this is obviously the eyes
the eyebrows will add that there may be
even on points of contrast around her
nose for example if we want that line to
stand out that was too much so we won’t
do that and lips definitely do it on
lips it’ll be really really great on
there so stuff like that it’s really
really handy as a tool and I hope that
this kind of gives you some ideas of
where you can use the texture brush in
your own photography obviously it has a
lot to offer so if this video was
helpful for you do me a big favor hit
that like button for me make sure to
subscribe for future content tutorials
and resources and leave me a comment
below do you see this tool being helpful
for you how are you using it in your
photography do you have different
techniques that I haven’t shown you here
today I’d love to hear about them
alright I will catch you in the next
video
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