The Glamour Blur Plugin

Glamour blur is a technique for softening skin and creating a dream-like look. It consists of overlaying the original image with a blurred copy of partial opacity. The filter is based on the Very High Radius Unsharp Mask filter, and uses the same Gaussian blur technique which is suitable for very large images.

• The Radius setting is a percent of the image diagonal, so it is independent of the actual image size. The apparent and scaled radii in pixels are also displayed.

• The Amount setting is actually the negative of the amount used for sharpening.

• In Normal mode, the plugin processes each RGB channel separately. In Grayscale Only mode, the plugin processes a grayscale copy of the image, then combines it with the color components of the original image. The appearance of the former may be superior; but the latter runs faster.

• Dark/Light Mixer works as follows: the central position (zero) displays the processed image; the far left is like Darken blend mode, and the far right is like Lighten. The latter promotes gauzy highlights; the former, receding shadows.

• The edge mask may be used to undo the blur effect over details such as the eyes and jewelry. It also suppresses artifacts at high blur amounts. But it may also reveal skin blemishes or other unwanted details; manual masking after applying the filter is another option. Blur the mask with Radius, and adjust it with the Intensity and Level sliders. Its appearance is dependent on the size and content of the preview, and is scaled from the size of the preview; it is best to view it, as well as the blurred image, as the entire image (Fit).

• Raise the lower black slider in Blend Ranges to gradually fade the filter’s effect in the shadows; lower the upper white slider to similarly fade the highlights.

• reduced memory requirements; should run better on larger images, 10,000 pixels or more.

Download the zipped file, then copy the plugin, the help file, and the demo registration key into your plugins folder. The filter will appear under “RC Filters.”

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The unregistered filters will save images up to 720 pixels in width and/or height. Please purchase a registration key for $9.00 which unlocks all of the RC Filters. Use either of the secure links below and I will e-mail you a text file (RCFKey.txt) to copy into your plugins folder. Be sure to use a valid e-mail address (I don’t sell or give them away). I check my e-mail for payment notifications every morning, Pacific time, and other random times; if you do not receive a key within one day it means I am in the hospital. If you paid for any of the RC Filters before keys were used, email me and I will send you a key. The filters come with a demo key; if properly installed, the dialog will say “Demo key” when you click the About button. Questions . . . .

The filters, the help files, and the registration key all go into the same folder. It may help to make an RC Filters subfolder. Each filter has a link back to the plugin folder on the About dialog for easy access.