Exploring the Photoshop Landscape Mixer Filter.

I have watched several videos, including this one, that show images that come out relatively believable while the poster gushes over how fantastic the landscape mixer is.  I have tried it on a number of images, and all of them come out looking awful.  Most of them end up with horrible artifacts, the images get smeared almost like an impressionist painting, and the colors and textures are not in the least bit realistic.  I have even downloaded the original stock images that were used in some of the videos and did the same exact steps as done in the videos, with results that don't look at all acceptable - even though the videos show nice results.  I would assume I would get the same if I tried the images that are in this video.  I'm not sure how anyone is getting good results with this.  I have attached a representative sample that is similar to one of the photos in the video.  

Maybe I am missing something, or that I have a setting that isn't right, but from the video it looks as though nothing special has to be done to get "stunning" results.