Download: TOPAZ CLEAN ™ V2.0 User’s Guide

Topaz Labs, LLC A Video and Image Enhancement Company

TOPAZ CLEAN ™ V2.0 User’s Guide

May 2009 Copyright © 2009 Topaz Labs, LLC. All rights reserved. http://www.topazlabs.com,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction...3 Getting Started...4 The Clean 2 User Interface ... 5 Image Modes... 6 Using Presets...7 Applying Presets ... 7 Snapshots ... 8 Preset Previews ... 8 The Presets Menu... 8 Settings and Parameters ...10 CLEAN... 10 EDGES ... 11 TEXTURE... 12 Menu ...13 Shortcut Keys ...15 Using Topaz Clean 2 ...16 http://www.topazlabs.com/clean for detailed tutorials, tips, and tricks For more information about Topaz Clean visit: http://www.topazlabs.com/clean 2,

Introduction

Topaz Clean v2 is a Photoshop plug-in that uses unique image processing technology to achieve a clean and crisp photo effect on images. Its primary function is to provide the ability to take ultimate control of detail edge smoothness and overall image clarity. Topaz Clean v2 is a highly enhanced version of the original Topaz Clean filter in Topaz Vivacity. It also includes several built-in presets that serve as a starting point for many images. You can also save and share your own presets. Although there are many parameters, they’re all quite intuitive and easy to learn. The best way to become proficient at this filter is to experiment with it – the function of each parameter is made clear after trying it out a few times. In addition, there are useful tooltips for each parameter that can be accessed by hovering your mouse over it for a second. In the following pages are explanations of the different functions and parameters in Topaz Clean. Please visit the Topaz Clean website at http://www.topazlabs.com/clean for more tutorials, tips, and tricks! As always, if you have any questions regarding any of our software, feel free to contact us at our support page: http://www.topazlabs.com/support.,

Getting Started

Topaz Clean 2 is a Photoshop plug-in, which means it won’t run by itself and requires a compatible host program. To use Topaz Clean 2, first open Photoshop or another compatible host program (Paint Shop Pro, Irfanview, Elements, etc) and load an image into it. You may now access Topaz Clean 2 by clicking on the Topaz Labs -> Topaz Clean 2 item in the Filters menu. Topaz Clean is an in-depth detail, edge, and feature smoothness filter that gives the user unique post-processing capabilities. Although it may look complicated at first glance, don’t worry: you’ll be a pro after experimenting with it for a bit. This user’s guide will tell you everything you need to know about the details. If you have any questions after reading the User’s Guide, please let us know at http://www.topazlabs.com/support!,

The Clean 2 User Interface

The Topaz Clean 2 user interface is shown as follows: All the GUI items, such as buttons and parameter settings have context-sensitive help, which is disabled by default. This means that if you enable it and place a mouse cursor on an item for one second, a help balloon will pop up and display useful information regarding that item. To enable context-sensitive help, click button “Menu…”, and then “Preferences…” and check the “Enable popup help” box. The left side of the window contains the Presets panel, where you can preview, apply, and manipulate different presets. The big image on the top-right is the Preview section that shows you the processed preview of the image. To pan the preview image, click and hold the left mouse button on the preview image and drag it around. When you let go of the mouse button, the new portion of image will be processed, according to the current settings and the result will be displayed. The checkbox “Pan Preview faster” in Menu…->Preferences controls the speed of the pan action. Check it to pan around a large image. To compare the filtered and un-filtered images, click and hold the “View Original Image” button to switch to the unfiltered image. Letting go of the button will switch back to the filtered image. You can toggle the filtered and un-filtered image back and forth like this in order to see the before and after. You can also use the SPACE key for the same purpose. You can zoom in or out of the preview image clicking the “+”, or “-” buttons below the preview image, and you can resize the window as well. The Fit button will attempt to fit the entire image into the window. The 100% button will zoom to 100% view. If zoomed below 100% the preview image will internally be resized in order to speed up preview updating. A few new hotkeys may also come in handy. Pressing the SPACE bar shows the original image in the preview while releasing it shows the processed image. Pressing “Ctrl +” and “Ctrl –” zooms in and out of the image as in Photoshop. Use the arrow keys to adjust the value of slider that is currently selected. A complete list of the short-cut keys can be found later in this manual. All the filter’s parameters are in the tabbed panel under the image preview. The following section will give a quick overview of the Presets panel.

Image Modes

Photoshop and other host software support many image modes including as Grayscale, RGB, LAB, CMYK, etc. Images can also be 8, 16, or 32 bits per channel. Topaz Clean 2 supports both 8 bits per channel and 16 bits per channel. Topaz Clean 2 supports RGB mode only. To work on black-and-white images, first convert them to RGB mode. If the filter is grayed out in the Filters menu, it’s likely that you either don’t have an image open or you’re using an unsupported image mode.,

Using Presets

Presets are a great way to speed up and simplify the whole process of using Topaz Clean 2. They function as “snapshots” of certain sets of Topaz Clean 2 parameter settings that you can recall and reapply at any time in the future. We’ve included some presets for you and, although they won’t work for every single photograph, they serve as excellent starting points for customized tweaking. Please note that presets are only meant to be a starting point and different images may not work with certain presets. Each photograph is unique and presets may not bring out the best in them – especially because Topaz Clean works differently depending on the image’s unique size. The best way to get great- looking images is to experiment with the filter until you’re satisfied with the image you’re working on. Despite the number of sliders and settings, getting a great result is easier than you might think!

Applying Presets

Applying a previously defined preset is easy and intuitive. Simply clicking a preset will change all the settings in Topaz Clean to match the preset. At this point you may still want to go through the tabs and tweak the parameters. If you’d prefer to see the presets in List mode instead of having a preview for every single one, click the Preview menu and hit “Toggle list/Thumbnail”. It program might take a few seconds to refresh. Using list view also reduces the time required to open Topaz Clean.,

Snapshots

The Snapshots feature gives you a quick way to create up to two snapshots of your settings to compare without having to save presets. For example, if you wanted to compare how two different settings would work on one image, you would just save both settings as different snapshots and compare the two easily without having to save, apply, and then delete presets. To use snapshots, simply click Snap 1 or Snap 2 to save your current settings into memory. Clicking Recall 1 or Recall 2 applies the saved settings to the image in much the same way as a preset does. Please note that the snapshots are deleted if you exit out of the current Topaz Clean window because they are meant to help you in the current Topaz Clean session only.

Preset Previews

Topaz Clean 2 includes a small thumbnail above each preset to preview the settings before you apply them to the image. This way you can scroll down the list quickly and see the different previews’ results on the image without too many clicks. If you have many presets and you want to see them as a list without the thumbnails instead, simply select “Toggle List/Thumbnails” from the Preset… menu and the thumbnails will be replaced by a list of your available presets. This will also considerably improve Topaz Clean 2’s initialization speed. Click the Refresh button to position the preview presets to where your main Topaz Clean preview is located. If you scroll the main Topaz Clean preview to a certain location and then press the Refresh button again, every preset preview will then jump to that location as well. The presets previews will also zoom to the same degree as the preview window.

The Presets Menu

, Because of the multitude of functions and parameters inside of Topaz Clean, it’s very convenient to be able to define presets and save your best settings for later use. First, adjust the Topaz Clean 2 parameters until you’re satisfied with the result and want to save the settings. Then, click on the Presets button and click the “Save…” button. Enter a preset name and optional description and click OK. Please note that if the name you’ve entered is the same as a preset you’ve already defined, instead of creating a new preset Topaz Clean will just override the first one. Note that you can’t override or delete the default presets that we’ve provided unless you manually do it inside Clean’s Presets folder with a text editor. The preset you saved will be located in the “Presets” folder of Topaz Clean, usually at C:\Program Files\Topaz Labs\Topaz Clean 2\Presets unless you’ve opted to install Topaz Clean into a different directory. You’ll notice that in the Presets folder there are already a few preset files. Your preset will be saved as a new file as presetname.tpp. If you like, feel free to share your saved presets by emailing them to your friends and having them put it into their Topaz Clean Presets folder. Your new preset is also automatically saved into the Topaz Clean 2 presets menu and the preview is automatically generated. To apply it later, just click it like any other preset. You may then go through the sliders and tweak them until you’re satisfied with the settings for that particular image. If you’d like to delete a preset, use the Delete option with your desired preset selected. To import a preset file, click the Import button. This will open up a Browse box to import a saved preset from your computer into Topaz Clean 2. This is useful if you have downloaded a preset file that you’d like to use. To import a preset file directly from the Internet, click the Import from Internet… button and paste in the exact URL in which the preset file is located. To export the preset file to a certain location, click “Export”. You can then share this file with other users who may then Import it.,

Settings and Parameters

Topaz Clean makes use of 3 adjustment tabs: Clean, Edges, and Texture. The best teacher for this filter is experimentation – each parameter, when adjusted, has a quite noticeable effect that you’ll pick up quickly. What follows are some guidelines to follow and some tips to keep in mind for each of the parameters. In general, you will adjust the parameters using the tabs from left to right, starting from the Clean tab. (The Clean tab also affects the Edges tab’s effectiveness to an extent.)

CLEAN

The Clean tab flattens texture and remove weak image detail and makes everything look a little more flat. This can be used by itself as a standalone effect or combined with other methods for subtler post- processing. Strength This parameter determines the overall strength of Topaz Clean effects. It not only affect the smoothness in this parameter tab, but also the strength of edges in “Edges” tab. A larger value produces more pronounced effects. Threshold, The level beneath which image features are tend to be removed by the Topaz Clean. This refers to the change in contrast rather than an absolute size threshold in pixels. A higher value generally produces a cleaner and smoother image. Radius The radius of the effect in pixels. A higher value generally creates a flatter image.

EDGES

The Edges tab applies a smoothening effect to image detail and edges. It is mainly used make the edge smoother. Accent It controls the degree that edges are smoothed. A higher value produce smoother edges, which give curly looking effects. Radius Ths size of edge processing. A higher value produces thicker smoothed edges. Sharpness Edge sharpness value. A higher value produces more pronounced edges with higher contrast.,

TEXTURE

The Texture tab re-applies the original image features on top of the image processed through Clean and Edges. It gives a couple of tools that help refine these image features for the most natural result. Strength It determines the amount of original texture to be preserved. Boost It boosts the strength of smaller details while keeping strong texture intact. A value less than 1 will reduce the intensity of smaller details. Size It sets the size of image features that are considered texture to be preserved. A larger value will preserve larger detail as texture from the original image.,

Menu

Access Topaz Clean’s menu by clicking on the Menu… button in the bottom right corner of the filter. The I’m feeling very lucky! button takes every single parameter in the exposure, detail, and color tabs and immediately randomizes them. Usually this tends to give some pretty extreme results but can be fun or even inspiring to play with. The I’m feeling lucky! button only randomizes the current tab. Click the Share… button to automatically generate forum- or email-friendly text of your current settings. This is useful when you want to share your current settings but don’t want to deal with saving and exporting presets. About… shows you your current version of Topaz Clean 2 and lists the homepage http://www.topazlabs.com. Online Resource… brings you to the Topaz Clean 2 homepage where we have video tutorials and suggestions available for your immediate viewing. User’s Guide… brings up the document you’re currently reading. Enter Key… to enter a license key or 30-day extension for this product. If you’ve already entered a full-version license key, feel free to ignore this button. Check Update… checks the current version of Topaz Clean 2 installed on your computer to the version on the server. If there’s a new version available, Topaz Clean will tell you after you click this button. Preference… brings up a menu where you can adjust the visual color scheme and a couple of other options:, Every setting in the Preference window is saved for future use of Topaz Clean 2. In order to change one of these preferences, simply access this menu again. Enable popup help gives tooltip reminders and tips when hovering your mouse over certain areas of the filter. Turn this off if you’re finding that they impede your work. Pan preview faster affects the panning speed of the Topaz Clean preview.,

Shortcut Keys

Topaz Clean uses some shortcut keys to speed up your workflow. The following key works at all times: SPACEBAR View original image. CTRL-1 Recall Snapshot 1 CTRL-2 Recall Snapshot 2 ALT-1 Capture Snapshot 1 ALT-2 Capture Snapshot 2 CTRL-R Reset Current Tab CTRL-ALT-R Reset All CTRL-0 Zoom to Fit CTRL-ALT-0 Zoom to 100% + or CTRL-+ Zoom In - or CTRL- - Zoom Ou In addition, if a parameter slider is in focus (usually by clicking on it), you can use the following key to change its value: Left arrow or up arrow Reduce value by 0.01 Right arrow or down arrow Increase value by 0.01 Page up key Reduce value by 0.1 Page down key Increase value by 0.1 Home key Set the value to minimum End key Set the value to maximum Finally, you can use up arrow or down arrow key to select preset when the preset preview pan is in focus.,

Using Topaz Clean 2

For some great tutorials and examples of Topaz Cleaned photos, please visit the Topaz Clean homepage here: http://www.topazlabs.com/clean Click the Tutorials link for some video tutorials related to Topaz Clean. Check the page periodically for new Topaz Clean information, or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/topazlabs for instant updates and new tutorials. If you ever have any questions, suggestions, or comments, feel free to contact us at http://www.topazlabs.com/support/.]

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