Image cleaning.

I think alot of people use topaz and if you do you should try this. I use it to clean images. It works well. Especially on smaller images.

All i do is apply a Denoise/Eq filter, on the standard settings. Then apply a sharpen, again on the standard settings.


Here you can see the difference.

Original, dirty image.


Clean image. Much better.



Dirty, larger image.


Cleaned, larger image.


Open the two up and toggle between them to see the difference. I used to use topaz clean alot but i use this more now.

 

thanks for the tip

 

I've done the same thing a number of times, sometimes a pic just isn't clear enough.

 

Ohhh, nice.

 

Good tip Jamms, it's a very useful filter if you know how to use it properly! :thumbs:

 

Imagenomic Noiseware is another good plugin for cleanin up images, similar to topaz but there's a lot more options for fine tuning it.

 

Checking them out now.

 

I use this: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/USM.HTM Which has served me well for a long time. Instead of creating multiple images, just use layers instead.

 

Very cool , thanks Jamms

 

Never been a fan of Topaz and other ... too crude imo.
Besides PS already has a good filter to do so ... "noise".

If you want to step one up from PS there's 2 outstanding programs to do so: "Noise Ninja" from "PictureCode" and "Noiseware" from "Imagenomic" (standalone).

I prefer Noiseware although Noise Ninja does an outstanding job also.

 

Are they freeware?

 

While Noiseware is an outstanding program I don't think it should be used here.
After all I don't really detect that much "noise" (artifacts, sampling errors, CA etc...) maybe some in the blue background area on the right.

I guess what you're referring to are the "imperfections" on the skin ... I call them "natural" details like facial hair, scars and wrinkles.
That's something a high-end DSLR will do of course ... show every detail.

If you want to get rid of that we're talking smoothing/tuning the skin. In the industry it is often referred to as "porcelain" or "high-fashion" skin texture. Something alot of professional photograpthers do to enchant their average models/teens/moms from around the corner.

Using a "Surface Blur" filter in PS in a duplicate layer and then masking it will do the trick quite nicely and imo better than Topaz will.

If you want a "professional" result and don't want to spend hours on it in PS itself, you should use the best pro plugin there is for this job:
Imagenomic's Portraiture 2 plugin for PS.

Made some quite fast and crude ones: 3rd image is a default one and 4th image is a glamour or high-fashion one.

Just click the imagevenue link and see the gallery (4 images: 1=source, 2=Topaz by Jamms, 3&4=those I did using Portraiture and some simple blur/masking)

http://img152.imagevenue.com/gallery/loc626/91_1732_1254829789.php

If you want a near perfect result you'll need to learn how to use the custom settings in Portraiture (I got a "free" copy of it on the netz more than a year ago).

If you want to understand what you're actually doing you should read up on the classics:
Scott Kelby's "PS for Photographers",
Martin Evening's "PS for Digital Photographers" and
Mark Fitzgerald's "PS - Restoration and Retouching Bible"
(I bought those in the bookstore).