today I want to talk to you about something called enhance details this
is a new feature in Lightroom classic that was released in February of this
year in version 8.2 the reason I'm telling you about this is because it's
actually the follow-up to my last video in that video I compared the performance
of Lightroom with some other raw converters the RAW files are used in the
video were taken from a Fuji XT 2 camera Lightroom's always had a problem
processing RAW files from the Fuji x-trans sensor but now they fixed it or
at least they have if you're using version 8.2 and if you're a Photoshop
Camera Raw user Adobe's also added the feature to that in the February release
but it's not just Fuji raw files that this feature is supposed to improve if
you read the information about enhance detail on the Adobe site it says powered
by Adobe sensei enhance details produces crisp detail improved color
rendering more accurate renditions of edges and fewer artifacts enhanced
details is particular useful for making large prints where find details are more
visible this feature applies to raw mosaic files from cameras with baya
sensors Canon Nikon Sony and others and Fuji x-trans sensors so let's see how it
really performs with some actual examples the first image I want to show
you that's on screen now is one shot with a Fuji XT one using an 18 to 135
lens it's significant for me because this was the first time I'd used a Fuji
camera the results of processing this image using Lightroom at the time made
me think the camera was actually faulty a two-to-one magnification you can see
that the fine grass here just takes on the smeared appearance no let's use
the enhanced detail feature at Lightroom you can select enhance detail from
either the photo menu or I right clicking on the image this is important
because it's not something that you can turn on and off to use enhance detail
you need to process each raw file that you want to use it on separately if I
click on this image you can see the enhanced detail option this displays a
dialog showing a magnified preview of the raw file you can also zoom the
preview out by clicking this magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner
it's then possible to zoom into another area as well as this you can click and
drag using the mouse when zoomed in the preview appears to be about four to one
magnification or that's about 400% so keep this in mind if you're going to be
using it to judge the results if I click the enhance button Lightroom will
generate an enhanced version of the image
this is created as a new raw file and it's in the DNG format it's also got
exactly the same settings at the raw file that we processed I'm not sure how
well it will show on the video but the detail is definitely clearer in the new
raw file having experimented a little with the new DNG files they appear to
respond differently to the original files in terms of sharpening and noise
reduction so don't just rely on your old settings to get the best from the new
file though the image I'm showing here isn't really a good example because the
lens I used did turn out to be faulty instead let's have a look at a different
example from my Fuji XT 2 camera that uses a different 18 to 135 lens
here I'm zoomed into an area of the image you can see that the details in
the fern and the Bracken here look to be artificial in some way an almost like a
drawing now I've also got a version of the file process using enhanced details
feature when we look at the new enhanced DNG file we find the details that caused
a problem in the original file now look much better
I've also processed both versions of this image and taken them into Photoshop
so we can make a better comparison if you watch the distant details you can
see the enhanced version improves a standard version so I've got the
standard version on screen at the moment zoomed in at 200% if I turn on the
enhanced version you should be able to tell that these areas here in the
distance now appear to have a much more natural-looking detail than the original
it's only a subtle change but it is actually quite clear when you're looking
at it on your own monitor and it's the same story when we look at the images I
processed in my previous video the standard version just appears to look
false in the detail turn on the enhanced version and all of
a sudden it appears natural but where things get really impressive is when we
process an image from a high quality lens this image was shot using my ten to
twenty four lens which is much better quality than the 18 to 135 in terms of
what it can resolve if we zoom into the detail here and we take that up to 200%
this image was processed with the standard Lightroom processing and now
this image was shot with the enhanced detail and you can see that there's a
little bit more detail being resolved in the image and the same happens out in
these mid distant regions here it also looks really natural now if I
turn this off and you look at the old version it just looks a little bit more
smeared and a little unnatural having made some comparisons I'm reasonably
confident the enhanced detail version now matches what I was achieving before
using iridium text transformer but there may be some bad news as well the feature
is supposed to improve RAW files from lots of different cameras personally
I've seen very little difference except from when processing Fuji raw files I'm
hoping that if you can try the enhanced details feature on your own RAW files
you'll let me know your faults in the comments it'll be interesting to see if
there are other cameras where the new processing makes such a large
improvement as with the Fuji x-trans I hope you found today's video useful I'm
Robin Whalley you've been watching Lenscraft I'll see you next time for another
video