Perfectly Clear Complete Version 3 was just released and has some terrific new and refined tools for finishing your pictures. However, version 2 was also awesome, and I assumed any image editing tools would also be great, and they are.

The surprising thing in version 3 is the way they’ve refined preset management. The new settings and organization make it easier to make and share presets, and it makes my workflow just a little bit faster, which makes me a whole lot happier.

Built-In Presets

Presets simply move sliders to a starting point to kick-start your finishing. Previously, choosing a preset felt like you were choosing settings that weren’t available in a different preset (though they were) and you had to leave the editing tools to find the preset options. Now, the built-in presets are all always visible in the top menu bar, while the editing sliders are always visible on the right-hand palette. It’s a little more intuitive, and it’s easy to see that each preset simply moves the sliders to a starting point and that there are no settings in one preset unavailable in another.

User Presets

After you start with a built-in preset, you’ll make adjustments to the sliders that make the picture look the way you prefer, and then you can save your own preset

New Preset groups make it easy to organize and find presets.

to use on other similar pictures. I’ve made several presets that I regularly use, like ‘woman on gray,’ ‘man on white,’ and ‘forest waterfall.’ Previous versions of the app had the custom preset buttons obscured with other tools, and I often forgot to save my settings as a preset. When I did remember to make them, I had to search through a continuous list of all my presets to find the one I needed. Now, you can organize all your presets into groups, which makes it much easier to find them, and the buttons for making presets are nestled right at the bottom of the Preset palette where they are easy to see.

Get a free set of Photofocus LOOKs here and some great presets by Kristina Sherk.

My Workflow

My Perfectly Clear workflow is simple.

  1. I cull my pictures to the best shots, then adjust the white balance.
  2. Next, I launch Perfectly Clear one picture and choose a preset to get started with the editing and make any adjustments necessary.
  3. Now I save a preset for this picture and close the app to go back to Lightroom.
  4. Now in Lightroom I just select all the favorites from the shoot and export them as a group into Perfectly Clear with the preset I just made selected.

They all get exported into Perfectly Clear, and the automatically re-import to Lightroom with the finish applied. It’s simple and super fast, and the new preset organization in Perfectly Clear makes it easier to manage. I highly recommend you upgrade to Version 3 and give it a whirl (and yes, there’s a money-back guarantee).