Two sliders not to touch in ACR

There are two sliders which are tempting to use in Adobe Camera Raw which has adverse effects on your RAW footage.

1) Sharpen: this will introduce artifacts (Yes even on RAW footage) especially in textures like clouds.

2) Clarity: this will cause your shadow areas to flicker such as near crushed blacks and any vignettes added in post

I have got better results with the 'unsharp mask' filter in After Effects to sharpen RAW footage, in fact you can sharpen the RAW footage really far before the halo effect occurs, but do this AFTER you have processed the RAW file.

I've tested several RAW converters with BMCC dngs and so far getting the best results with RPP 64, at least much better than ACR.

Have you tried Capture One?
I've seen saw great pocket raw processed via CO7.

I've seen the flicker issue happen when using the highlight/shadow adjustment as well. General exposure adjustment is fine though.

I use the ACR filter plugin for prores footage in photoshop CC. I'm not seeing an issue with the clarity or highlights slider. (I don't use the sharpen slider). Could the problem you guys are having only be indigenous to DNG's? Or do you think I'm screwing up my footage and not even noticing it? You got me all paranoid.

I see you are using Adobe CC, I'm using CS6 so I can't speak for CC as I can't use the ACR as a filter in CS6

I use the ACR filter plugin for prores footage in photoshop CC. I'm not seeing an issue with the clarity or highlights slider. (I don't use the sharpen slider). Could the problem you guys are having only be indigenous to DNG's? Or do you think I'm screwing up my footage and not even noticing it? You got me all paranoid.

I doubt this issue shows in ProRes footage, as it's already processed and wrapped. One theory that would explain the issue in DNG sequences is that both ACR and Lightroom might read the individual RAW frames' exposure slightly differently. After all, they're tools made for still photography, not sequences.

I too think this is the case Christian, the flickering is there in the DNG footage if you compare frame by frame even before you have processed the footage in ACR, and the clarity filter magnifies this if you push the slider far enough, in fact it can be a bit of a 'Gotcha' if you don't expose correctly on static shots such as landscapes!