According to Longman Dictionary, painfully means :
1- very – used to emphasize a bad or harmful quality that someone or something has
2- needing a lot of effort
This is the text:
"…and his college basketball days are far enough behind him that his chest muscles have turned into saggy manboobs that were painfully obvious through his freebie dot-com polo shirts." – Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Is it "very obvious to find out" or "it needs a lot effort to find it out"?
Best Answer
The term painfully here takes on the meaning of very as you have it in your definition 1, except that the 'harm' is usually one of embarrassment.