Using Selective Clarity & Texture in Pixelmator Photo on the iPad Pro ?

[augustya]

Hi Guys,

After the latest Version Release of PixelMator Photo ver 2.2.1 There is this new functionality that has been added in PixelMator poto and i.e. Selective Clarity & Texture and General Clarity & Texture.

Though I understand that Selective Clarity applies the changes only to selective area and general does it globally.

But my question is, can I as a user decide which areas after selection can this Selective Clarity and texture be applied ? or it is applied on the face of the subject in the photo automatically ? If that is Yes, how does PixelMator photo decide what is the face in a photo of subject ?

And if I want the selective clarity and texture to be applied only on a person’s face Do I need to toggle and change only Midtones in Selective Clarity & Texture ?

Also am I clear in understanding that the other General Clarity and Texture is applied on the whole image ? Also Highlights and Shadows in it ?

[Nadeem]

The way I understand it, the user cannot decide where to apply the selective clarity in the sense of masking an area of the image to only apply the changes there. You can however choose to adjust the shadows, midtones, or highlights separately. This means that Pixelmator Photo will apply the changes to the pixels that fall into those categories, wherever they are in the image. In your example, if your person's face has some darker pixels (say a shadow on the neck under the chin), applying selective clarity/texture to the midtones won't impact those shadow pixels. Similarily, if the person has some highlights on their face (say a light reflection on their forehead), if you apply a shadows clarity/texture change, those pixels of the light reflection won't change (you'd need to choose the highlights and then move those sliders). Hope that helps!

[augustya]

The way I understand it, the user cannot decide where to apply the selective clarity in the sense of masking an area of the image to only apply the changes there. You can however choose to adjust the shadows, midtones, or highlights separately. This means that Pixelmator Photo will apply the changes to the pixels that fall into those categories, wherever they are in the image. In your example, if your person's face has some darker pixels (say a shadow on the neck under the chin), applying selective clarity/texture to the midtones won't impact those shadow pixels. Similarily, if the person has some highlights on their face (say a light reflection on their forehead), if you apply a shadows clarity/texture change, those pixels of the light reflection won't change (you'd need to choose the highlights and then move those sliders). Hope that helps!

You have given me the definition of Selective Clarity & Texture. My question was does Pixelmator Photo decide on its own ? What it considers as face ? And under what Parameters does it consider while applying it?

[Nadeem]

It has nothing to do with faces or any ‘subject’ for that matter. It is based on the tone of the pixels. Dark (shadows, the pixels that fall into the left side of the histogram), medium (midtones, the middle of the histogram), and bright (highlights, the right side of the histogram). It’s like the color balance with the shadows, midtones, and highlights color wheels, if you’ve used that.