Clarity vs Sharpen in LR

Hey all,

Can anyone give me a nice easy laymans term for the clarity vs sharpening tools.
I just tried the clarity button (took it to 100 percent to accentuate it) on a photo which was of a sign and it appeared to be or do the same as sharpening....is this what it's supposed to do or........

Cheers
Phil

Clarity adjusts local contrast. Sharpness does the same, but with a way smaller radius

If you were to mimic Clarity using "old skool" photoshop tools, you'd use USM (that's sharpening ) with a radius of for instance 25px and a low amount.

Thanks Rene, that pretty much summed it up perfectly.....

Oh, so does that mean it's not a good idea to use both or purely subjective?

I have been applying about 10-20 clarity on most photos and also LR sharpening.....

And since the consensus tends to be towards sharpening last, would I do clarity last?

In the context of LR3, "sharpening last" means Output Sharpening that you set on the Export or Print page. Operations in the Develop module can be set in any order.

Clarity and Sharpening need to be set according to the subject matter. For a landscape with fine detail that is important, use high Clarity, a smaller sharpening radius and a high Detail setting. For a close-up portrait of a woman where you don't want to emphasize every pore, pimple and wrinkle; low Clarity, high radius and minimal Detail. High ISO and noise are another factor; Clarity brings out mid-range detail and noise together with it, as will unmasked sharpening.

A lot of times you will need to go back and forth between Contrast, Clarity and Sharpening (and possibly NR) to find the right balance between them.