Powerful Portrait Software

[wasserball]

I will be shooting a lot of HS senior portraits for the 2018 graduating class. So, I decided to enhance a few facial photos that are in the public domain, ie googleable, to get familiar with the software. I always ask for permission if I use facial photos in a public website. Please share your opinion. I removed the freckles and changed the color of his eyes to show the power of the software with two simple commands.

 

[Henry Stamm]

The pp on the girls works to some degree, but I think is overdone. For the boys, you definitely show the power of the software, but it's way too much processing & looks very unnatural. I don't know if you're using Portrait Pro or something else, but be very careful with default settings. In Portrait Pro, the default produces an "unnatural" look. Your work on the girls darkens their skin quite a bit from the original, perhaps too much so.

 

[wasserball]

The pp on the girls works to some degree, but I think is overdone. For the boys, you definitely show the power of the software, but it's way too much processing & looks very unnatural. I don't know if you're using Portrait Pro or something else, but be very careful with default settings. In Portrait Pro, the default produces an "unnatural" look. Your work on the girls darkens their skin quite a bit from the original, perhaps too much so.

--
http://hesphotography.zenfolio.com

Thanks. I have to be careful not to turn a natural looking face into one that looks like a mannequin. I also think if I don't presents the "before" photo, the processed photo will be acceptable. I am using Portrait Pro.

 

[Nick_Brisbane]

The boys look plastic - Surely in the second pic you need to keep the freckles.

 

[Pomo]

I think, you should not do postprocessing an boys - they look OK without it.

 

[wasserball]

probably true in that case, kinda sensitive about how a person should look. I removed them only to show the power of software with one keystroke. Also, if I did not included the "before" photos, I think the "after" would be better received. If you look at magazine covers, you will note that all photos look plastic. That tells me, people enjoy seeing what a photo should perceive, not what it really looks like.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Hmm, to me it's not so much that they look plastic or have that porcelain look, but that they strangely go from in focus with detail to smudged and blurry randomly all over the image, especially the ears. Personally I don't need to see a before pic to to wonder on the second pic why his jawline on one side is blended into his neck, or the right ear is a smudged blurry blob, but the left ear on the same focal plane is sharp etc etc

 

[wasserball]

probably because I forgot to emphasize his right ear before I went ahead with the skin color change. There are times when nose is out of focus relative to the eyes. The only person that really matters is the one who buys it. Now, if you tell me you don't need software to PP your portraits, then I need to learn something from you.

 

[Switcheroo]

I have recently be thinking about the same question: To soften the skin or not to soften the skin. My tendency is to go natural. I like to capture people how they are. But of course that is not doable specially when using sharp lenses and photographing women. So I try to go with something inbetween. I use Capture One 10. I paint a mask on the face (excluding eyes and mouth) and adjust the clarity and detail slider to -100.

That removes most of the impurities and still looks natural imo. Here is an example from a family shoot last weekend. What do you guys think?




before PP




after PP

 

[Nick_Brisbane]

I find her skin darker not necessarily smoother

 

[lim yau tong]

Portrait Professional software.

 

[Gato Amarillo]

I find the second guy photo interesting -- though not at all realistic.

The first guy is definitely too plastic for me, and I would not remove freckles unless a client asked for it. I even think the second guy might be more interesting with freckles.

For the other two, I agree with removing temporary blemishes such as acne and I think they overall work better with more skin texture preserved and a more realistic feel. My problem is always how to do it and still keep things real. I could never get Portrait Pro to really work for me -- I could do better in Photoshop in only a little more time.

My basic technique, whether with PP or straight PS, is to retouch the larger problems by hand, create a new layer and apply blur or portrait pro to skin areas, then adjust transparency and masking to get an overall look.

On the last two, especially on the very last, I think you might get a better result if you take the red color out of the blemishes before you apply PP. I use the brush tool set to "color" to paint over with color selected from nearby skin.

Gato

 

[DenWil]

The subject choices are curious. The two males have model (as in legitimate agency ) caliber faces and the two females are generic looking with trashed (from active acne) skin.

There is nothing to fix in the first two and yet you barreled through - what you did is comical at best. You must think there is something wrong with gingers that requires reinvention. I have never removed a freckle in my career.



The women are so damaged that while with the time I would have preferred a lighter touch and performed the fixes manually I can appreciate at your price point if there are fifty students with acne issues an automated fix for images that will appear 2" square in an annual/yearbook is probably reasonable.

--
dw
denniswilliams.net

 

[wasserball]

Yes, they all look fake, a word that's has been used often by the President and the news media lately.

 

[sabrina81]

I will be shooting a lot of HS senior portraits for the 2018 graduating class. So, I decided to enhance a few facial photos that are in the public domain, ie googleable, to get familiar with the software.... Please share your opinion.

I think they look awful. Just awful. Every single one of them.

 

[wasserball]

I will be shooting a lot of HS senior portraits for the 2018 graduating class. So, I decided to enhance a few facial photos that are in the public domain, ie googleable, to get familiar with the software.... Please share your opinion.

I think they look awful. Just awful. Every single one of them.

Thanks, Sabrina. Your comment will be taken seriously.

 

[wasserball]

This is how multimedia want portraits to look like. Fake looking faces is in!

http://www.hyperactivz.com/beauty-l....com/8b1fbe88-ced6-433a-a853-d9d20d1b4f7c.jpg

 

[Mavrk]

I would say the last one would be acceptable, but none of the rest. That is not to say there is no reason for post processing, just that a more delicate touch is needed. Getting through them fast (the 2 click thing) is not necessarily better. I didn't even look at the before until I went back over them.

That said, it could be because you are using internet images rather than full resolution raw images.

 

[Henry Stamm]

This is how multimedia want portraits to look like. Fake looking faces is in!

Not really. While fashion magazines still feature overly retouched images of models, there is a strong push-back against doing that in many kinds of portraiture.

Portrait Pro is indeed a powerful software that shortcuts much of what takes time & effort to do in PS or PSP or other image editing prorams. That said, use it carefully. I would suggest that once you fine tune the facial outline process, click on the tab that allows you to reset the "after" photo to the original image.

Then very sparingly use its tool set to edit your images. Pimples, bruises, cuts/abrasions perhaps should be removed, because those blemishes are not permanent features of the skin. Wrinkles can be softened a little, especially if lighting & sharp lenses make wrinkles more prominent than they really are. Widening eyes a tiny bit might be OK, as might be cleaning & whitening eyes & teeth (but be very careful--err on the "less" side of adjustment). Blotchy skin is a different animal altogether. Making the skin smooth and evenly colored might create a false image of your subject so that they don't even recognize themselves. Ditto with reshaping neck or head position or eyes.

But if you stray too far from reality, you may find that your subjects don't appreciate the outcome. Just because you can do a full-bore plastic doll look doesn't mean you should.

 

[Mark H U]

Hi,

What hind of updates do you get? I never have used software or tried it yet.