An image I reworked a week or so ago. I discovered in ACR, the latest update puts 0 on clarity in the middle, allowing now for negative clarity. Sorry if you all had already discovered this, but I have found for aiding in creamy bokeh, that this is great. I had previously done this image with a blur layer overlay but I think it turns out better with negative clarity.
Paul, this is really lovely. Could you explain this a bit more...the part about "0 clarity". I think I know what you're talking about but I'm sure some others are totally lost and we could all benefit from it!
Sorry, in Adobe Camera Raw, and I believe in the latest Lightroom, the clarity slider is defaulted at 0, which used to be to the far left of the slider, but now it is in the middle, allowing for negative clarity. It does different things for different images, but usually works well for images like this where what is sharp is pretty contrasty, as it seems to leave those areas alone.