The effectiveness of debris reduction using magnetically guided pulsed laser deposition (MGPLD) is reported here. KrF laser pulses (248 nm) of 100 mJ energy were focused to intensities of 6 X 10(9) W/cm(2) onto the surface of a copper or a carbon source target and a magnetic field of 0.3 T as used to steer the plasma around a curved arc of 0.5 m length to the deposition substrate. Debris counts were compared for films produced by the MGPLD and conventional PLD (nonguided) techniques. A significant reduction in particulates of size greater than 0.1 mum was achieved using MGPLD. For the copper films, particulate count was reduced from 150 000 particles/cm(2)/nm to 50 particulates/cm(2)/nm and for diamond-like carbon thin films particulate count was reduced from 25 000 particles/cm(2)/nm to 1200 particles/cm(2)/nm.