"portrait professional" program

[susanhmorgan]

Hey!! Every time I come to DPS, there's an ad for "portrait professional" so I finally clicked to have a look and it smooths peoples faces, whitens teeth, etc.. Anyone out there use this program? Is it worth it? (It's not much money but I have little).. Thanks!!

[i speak in math]

Originally Posted by susanhmorgan

Hey!! Every time I come to DPS, there's an ad for "portrait professional" so I finally clicked to have a look and it smooths peoples faces, whitens teeth, etc.. Anyone out there use this program? Is it worth it? (It's not much money but I have little).. Thanks!!

No, its not. Look into any pro-fashion magazine. No blurry skin

[SusanH1970]

I tried the trial version and hated it. No matter how slight my touch, it overcooked the crap out of every portrait. I use Imagenomic's "Portraiture". Much more control over how much or how little I want the skin smoothing do be done, and I run it on it's own layer so I can lower the opacity and mask back in hair, eyes, and mouth. I do any eye brightening/teeth whitening in CS2 if necessary - I found skin editing programs to be much too heavy-handed.

However, they still sell it and some swear by it. Go ahead and download the trial version and see if you like it. Also download Portraiture. There are also a gazillion ways to do skin smoothing in Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. Opinions vary.

[ishootRAW]

Installed trial, loaded picture, played with it, said words such as "too much" "fake" "looks like a kid went wild with clone brush", deleted trial, went on with my life.

[Kalogerus]

Dont waste your time with the trial even, its a complete failure. Pretty much like everybody before me posted about it! I use photoshop, I quit on everything else

[Bruce A]

Yeah. I got sucked into it once upon a time - no fairy tale ending. It's a great money maker getting the newbies in afaic.

[Woody]

STOP Don't download anything. I did and I am spammed day and night by Portrait whatever crap.

Cheers,

John W

[susanhmorgan]

Thanks everyone! I definitely won't be trying it.. I will look into portraiture. Also, other than clone stamping, how could you do this in PS? (I only have PS8). Thank you all! Very helpful!

[SwissJon]

Levels, blur filters, that kinda thing..

The thing about PP is just like any automated process in art.. It can't "see" what it's doing.. Automatic iso on the camera.. Switched it off.. Automatic focus.. When I can. Switch it off. (I mean that is something's moving to fast for manual focus, I have to use it) auto aperture and speed.. Switch at least on of them off (usually aperture) often both..

There's no one simple answer as to how to get decent portraits (or good anything else in photography) it just takes dedication, practice and a bit of artistic flair.. If every newbie in 6 months could shoot like David Bailey, do you really think he'd be so well considered?

[windrider86]

I'll be the odd bird here. I use it all the time. The trick is to use it selectively. For me, its a time saver thing and use it mostly to slim up faces and yes, soften skin.