Introducing Topaz Labs – Clean

I really like the Clean 3 plugin from Topaz Labs a lot and use it on a lot of different images. I use it on everything from birds and wildlife to glamour re-touching. It is one of the plugins that I put in the “you need to own this one” category! I love what it does for fur and I love what it does for eyes! Wicked cool eyes!

click any image to embiggen

Katie’s eyes without the curly smooth filter.

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Katie’s eyes with the curly smooth filter.

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I prefer to use this filter in an editor or the new photoFXlab that will let you work on layers so that you can mask in or out the effects. For example, I love what the skin softener does to well skin, but not so much to hair or eyes. I’m not trying to make a mannequin, so I always leave a few smile lines and such to give the image a much more realistic look.

Katie before (left) and after the smooth filter.

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Here is a bear image straight out of the camera that I’ll use to show some more filters in action.

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Look what the filter did to this image. Notice just how “curly” the fur is now. It is a bit over the top, but I wanted to emphasize the effect so you could easily see what the filter was capable of doing.

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Here is another fun filter, the cartoon. This is also sort of a 2fer because I used the image that had previously be rendered with the curly filter to show how applying more than one filter can give you an infinite number of variations.

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From Topaz

Topaz Clean is a powerful detail smoothing and edge stylization plug-in that simplifies advanced techniques typically used for creating smooth, flawless skin and curly, vectorized effects – allowing you to quickly and easily reduce or remove the depth of detail within images, while maintaining important structural detail and enhancing edges.

You can achieve a variety of smoothing, detail flattening and edge enhancement techniques with the Topaz Clean plug-in. With just a few clicks, you can selectively control the appearance and intensity of detail in your photographs – or eliminate them all together.

• Eliminates undesired details and effects
• Easy smoothing and texture adjustments
• Maintains important structure detail
• Great use for easy skin cleanup.
• Unique Cartoon creations