We present Spitzer images of the Taurus Complex ( TC ) .
We take advantage of the sensitivity and the spatial resolution of the observations to characterize the diffuse infrared emission across the cloud .
This work highlights evidence of dust evolution within the translucent sections of the archetype reference for studies of quiescent molecular clouds .
We combine the Spitzer 160 \mu m and IRAS 100 \mu m observations to produce a dust temperature map and a far-IR dust opacity map at 5′ resolution .
The average dust temperature is about 14.5K with a dispersion of \pm 1 K across the cloud .
The far-IR dust opacity is tightly correlated with the extinction derived from 2MASS stellar colors and is a factor 2 larger than the average value for the diffuse ISM .
This opacity increase and the attenuation of the radiation field both contribute to account for the lower emission temperature of the large grains .
The structure of the TC significantly changes in the mid-IR images that trace emission from PAHs and very small grains ( VSGs ) .
We focus our analysis of the mid-IR emission to a range of ecliptic latitudes away from the zodiacal bands and where the zodiacal light residuals are small .
Within this cloud area , there are no 8 and 24 \mu m counterparts to the brightest 160 \mu m emission features .
Conversely , the 8 and 24 \mu m images reveal filamentary structure that is strikingly inconspicuous in the 160 \mu m and extinction maps .
The infrared colors vary over sub-parsec distances across this filamentary structure .
We compare the observed colors with model calculations quantifying the impact of the radiation field intensity and the abundance of stochastically heated particles on the dust SED .
To match the range of observed colors , we have to invoke variations by a factor of a few of both the interstellar radiation field and the abundance of PAHs and VSGs .
We conclude that within this filamentary structure a significant fraction of the dust mass cycles in and out the small size end of the dust size distribution .