Software For Portraits

By Wes Pitts
Published February 26, 2015
Published in Software
ArcSoft Portrait+ initially presents 10 preset effect combos like “Smoothing + Whiten Teeth” and “Smoothing + Slim Face” for quick fixes, but you can always switch to a more detailed control panel to manage each effect manually.

ARCSOFT PORTRAIT+

Portrait+ 3.0 is another highly automated portrait retoucher that uses face-detection technology to identify up to 30 faces in a photo and set anchor points that target adjustments to key facial features. You can adjust these points for each individual in the photo. Ten presets range from light retouching and skin smoothing to more dramatic changes including face reshaping. Each of these presets can be edited to create your own presets by fine-tuning the effects via sliders. Batch processing lets you open a series of photos, which you can work on individually or apply your adjustments to all photos in the batch, speeding up retouching for multiple shots from a portrait session. Available as a stand-alone application or as a plug-in for Photoshop. List Price: $79 (plug-in); $179 (stand-alone). Contact: ArcSoft, arcsoft.com.

Beauty Box offers more than 30 preset effect combinations ranging from traditional portrait looks to more far-out effects that you might see used in advertising or graphic design.

DIGITAL ANARCHY BEAUTY BOX PHOTO

In addition to powerful, automatic skin tone and texture corrections, Beauty Box Photo includes more than 30 preset styles from subdued to wild. Beauty Box does an excellent job of automatically masking skin tones, but if it misses, you can manually adjust the mask by simply clicking on your subject’s skin. Slider controls let you refine the software’s effects by choosing how much detail to retain, the intensity of sharpening and the amount of shine (hot spots) to smooth out. You can also adjust hue, saturation and brightness, either globally or by confining those adjustments to the mask area. Among the presets are color and exposure effects if you’re looking to create a highly stylized portrait. Available as a plug-in for Photoshop and Aperture. List Price: $99. Contact: Digital Anarchy, digitalanarchy.com.

Beautune’s workflow feels similar to creating your own video game avatar. You start with facial features like skin color, shape and smoothing, then move on to enhancing eyes, mouth and global effects like the background defocus and framing.

EVER IMAGING BEAUTUNE

Beautune takes a hands-on approach to portrait enhancement, similar to what you might do if manually retouching in Photoshop, but with tools specifically created for each step, organized into four categories—Face, Eyes, Mouth and Advanced—to keep the interface clean and suggest a workflow. Select an enhancement and "paint" the effect onto your subject. Most of the tools can be adjusted for both size and intensity of the effect. In addition to the typical portrait fixes like skin smoothing and blemish removal, there are makeup tools to add foundation, eyeliner and shadow, lip tint and more. The Advanced tools include a defocus brush for softening the background, photo frames and Instagram-like color-effect filters. List Price: $29. Contact: Everimaging, everimaging.com.

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