Photo Retouching Software - Anthropics Technology’s Portrait Professional 8 Software

Take From Shutter Bug

Fun and retouching aren't usually words found in the same sentence. But using Portrait Professional 8 (PP8) Photo Retouching Software is a real blast and quite unlike any other program you've ever used to retouch before. That said, before we get too carried away, let's see what it is, and isn't. It's not Photoshop. It's not a substitute for Photoshop. It's not a Photoshop plug-in. It's a stand-alone program. You can be using it in minutes. The basic version works on JPEG and TIFF files. The pro version works on 16-bit raw files. It has PC and Mac versions. It does not have layers. It has a mind of its own.

PP8 Photo Retouching Software does not just remove and soften blemishes and eye lines, it actually changes the shape of the face so layers won't line up. It actually takes the information you feed into it and then attempts to change things based upon its own intelligence gained by studying hundreds of examples of faces considered beautiful. Naturally, I was insulted that they didn't use me as a sample specimen, but I figured it's because they're from England and didn't know me. After the computer goes to work on your image, it shows the before and after images side by side. You might take a look at the images and figure that outside of a little softening and blemish removal they look pretty much the same and there are many options to accomplish the same thing. You'd be wrong. With the split screen in place, hit the “Enter” button on your computer and watch the face change from the before and after pose. At the default settings, you'll notice the software has gone ahead and changed the nose, eyes, chin, lips, eyebrows, etc., and you didn't even notice. That's really cool or is it?

PP8 Photo Retouching Software allows you many options to control each aspect of the process. Once you have found your own sweet spot, you may set it as a default for both male and female faces. The “Master” control for each section, such as “Face Sculpt” or “Skin,” will move several sliders at once in concert, or you may choose to use the individual sliders like Jaw, Nose, or Neck, and even sub-sliders for things like eyes, eyebrow shape, etc. I found these to be very helpful. Many people have one eye smaller than the other and I get asked all the time to fix it in Photoshop, which usually involves making a new layer, circling the eye, and playing with the “Bloat” tool until you get it right. It's much simpler here as you can watch what you're doing and just use sliders until the eyes match. Crooked eyebrows are also an easy fix. Some of the more interesting controls are the “Tan” controls, which I found actually work quite well and can make your subject look like they just stepped off the jet from Acapulco. There are even buttons that let you change eye color.

Another interesting section is the “Touchup” and “Skin Area” brushes. I instinctively used the bracket key shortcut to control brush size like in Photoshop, and surprise, it worked! I also like the way it uses a brush to define certain areas, like the hair. It works like masking, but you just “paint” on the area you're working on and then go back to the sliders to adjust it to where you want. The section on eye control is very useful for brightening and/or sharpening them to get them just where you want them to be. The final sections are the “Lighting” and “Picture” controls. While I of course believe that you should get it right in the camera, it's nice to have little tweaks available to you. I found the Contrast sliders to be the most useful; on the other hand, the Relight control sounds interesting but wasn't very useful. Perhaps some sort of histogram built into the
program would make sense.

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