It would be nice if the clearview value could be negative. To make the fog deeper.Is there an alternative?
I agree. that would be useful.
Yes, there is. You have to play with sliders a bit, but you can get some decent results. Here is one example. Here is what I started and you can see the experiments.
You can take this further if you want to.
And also play around with local adjustments. Depending on the image and mood you are going for.
You can also use simple tone curve in some situation and reduce contrast.
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Thank you os much!! Iâll give it a try right away.
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In case you werenât aware, the flatter the tone curve, the less the contrast and the steeper, the greater.
ClearView Plus should never be used unless there is so much fog, you canât see the subject.
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I actually use it quite regularly in local adjustments to give more punch to clouds in a blue sky. It can also add pleasing clarity to town and city photos where it saturates colours in a very pleasing way. Just donât overdo it - I use 5-30 and very seldom more.
Experiment to see some good effects.
If you have FilmPack installed, the four âfine contrastâ sliders can work wonders, with a far more subtle effect than ClearView Plus. Both in increasing and reducing local contrast.
I canât remember the last time I used CVP.
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When I was a newbie user of PhotoLab 1, like many new PhotoLab users, I inappropriately overused ClearView, (later renamed to ClearView Plus in PhotoLab 2). That was years ago. I rarely use ClearView Plus these days. Even at lower settings it is usually far from the best tool to use. As @Joanna suggests, the four fine contrast sliders unhidden in PhotoLab with a FilmPack license are a much better choice.
Any use of ClearVIew Plus, which was designed specifically for haze removal, should be limited to images with significant amounts of haze, and even then middle to high settings should be avoided.
Mark
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Not everyone has FP, me included!
FP should consist of film simulations and related functions only (as the name suggests) and the additional functions such as enhanced contrast settings and luminosity masks should be in PL Elite.
I bought the full set of PL1, FP and VP and have kept them updated. I donât care how much FP costs, the fine contrast alone are worth every penny.
The full PhotoLab experience is expensive and includes PhotoLab Elite, FilmPack and Viewpoint. I have always used all three components extensively. They were divided into several components to make the entry into the DxO system more affordable. but that affordability has always come with a reduction in functionality. It is a choice.
Mark
I use Clear View and the Fine-Contrast settings - in judicious balance ⌠and I highly value both of them.
Iâve been working with FP and VP switched off for quite a while. Without FPâs fine contrast sliders, ClearView made its way back into my edits, mostly with settings well below 33. Sometimes, Higher values can work, specially if Iâm after graphic effects.
Removing atmospheric haze in landscape images often needs to be done as local adjustment because CV also acts on parts that need no CV. Landscapes are 3D and CV dies not take that into account and therefore, foregounds mostly look overcooked unless they are set right with local adjustments.
Maybe OP is a lightroom refugee, like me, coming from LR5.7, and has negative âClarityâ in mind. For portraits in LR usually I had to use small negative Clarity to get skin less blotchy, smoothing some harsh color transitions. It looked like LR used a positive Clarity setting under the hood, to get default rendering more pronounced, but that didnât work for most portraits. With PL7 I donât have this problem, so I didnât think of negative ClearView, just used micro/minicontrast sliders, if needed.
On the other hand, if negative ClearView would introduce a bit of (to be defined) mystery to some photos, using one slider instead of many, why not?
Entering the area of taste 
For daylight landscapes in which everything is far away, youâll get the âdry hazeâ effect even with clear air. Itâs something similar to shooting with highly non-contrasty lens. In such cases I find using ClearView a MUST, as you will not get all the colors back using just micro/minicontrast sliders.
Personally, I very often use CVP=50 setting for landscapes and CVP=25 for cities.
For some reason I find 25 and 50 settings âsweet spotsâ for CVP, depending on scene.
Sometimes I even use CVP=5-10 for group photos of 30-40 people, to make the faces more âreadableâ, without hurting them too much (but midtones minicontrast is perhaps better in such cases). Iâve never used CVP for headshots, except for one case of an old mountain shephard with face treated by the wind and sharp sun, where CVP=10 worked surprisingly well.
Maybe itâs just a PL newbie syndrome to overuse CVP, like Markâs in PL1 times?
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