Adobe Introduces 'Texture' - a New Control Slider for Lightroom and Camera Raw

The advantage of working with a quality software company like Adobe is that they regularly provide new products and updates. It's an organic approach by Adobe that can work to the advantage of its users, especially as technology improves so quickly these days.

Its latest introduction, Texture, is a new slider for Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Camera raw (on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS). It helps smooth or enhance textures in images without ruining finer details or adding unwanted noise.

Why?

As many Lightroom users can attest, skin smoothing inside Lightroom and Camera Raw would sometimes be more potent than wanted or needed. It would eliminate too much detail while smoothing out the skin.

Texture's introduction comes in response to demand by users for a product that could produce faster and better skin smoothing without eliminating too much detail. While the company states that photographers might still need Photoshop for some workflows, Texture should meet most of their needs.

What?

Regular users will note that Texture shares some features of other controls. According to Adobe, "...positive Texture (the range from 1 to 100) is somewhere between positive Clarity and Sharpening. Negative Texture (the range from -1 to -100) is sometimes compared to Noise Reduction."

Sharpening works on the "high-frequency" areas of a photo (the edges and fine details), while Texture targets the "mid-frequency" areas. The example the company provides in its roll-out uses a photo of a landscape. To add more definition to the small shrubs, you might ordinarily use Sharpening. However, that causes the noise in the photo to overwhelm the details you get from Sharpening. If you instead use Texture, you'd be able to enhance the details while not increasing the noise of the image.

Another way to utilize negative Texture is for skin smoothing. Again, in the company's example of a headshot, negative Texture smooths out the model's skin to achieve better smoothing "without obliterating the fine details."

How?

Texture is available as both a global slider and a local adjustment. Users will be able to choose between using global or local. The results are markedly different between them. The local adjustment allows you to target areas of an image or model like a face to smooth out specific areas using selection brushes and accentuate other areas. Overall, it is a powerful tool that allows you to control any enhancements easily to improve your photos - without destroying other areas.

Another way to use Texture is to enhance deliberate blur in images. Let's say you like the blur or motion you've captured, but think a softer look would improve the image. Brushing on Texture -70 is one way to achieve a softer edge to the blur. If you want even less detail, use a new brush correction using another Texture adjustment. It's just that versatile.

Overall, we think that Adobe's latest tool is a good update for photographers to use. It's an improvement in smoothing so that you don't eliminate too much other detail or add unnecessary noise.