Portrait Software - How over the top, or not, do you go?

Msmoto

@ ;jonnyapple

This is exactly what we did in the old days with film.  From dye transfer print it went to the airbrush and we used amateur models and ended up with a "New York" look.  Many a bill board was done for some large clients and all in little old High Point, NC

Recently I was giving some instructions to a new photog and the model was very new.  As I had always been sued to the model/model director having everything perfect before a shoot, I concentrated on the lighting and working with the young photog and missed the fact the model's makeup was not perfect.  Yikes, what an awakening after so many years.  The next shoot I will look more carefully.

TriShooter

I agree with most of the comments on thread about Professional Portrait being a good tool for people who occasionally retouch portraits if they can refrain from going over the top. Although I own it along with ArcSoft's product which is good but a little buggy, and Perfectly Clear which is also quite good, I never use them for individual, and family portraits.

The tools in LR are more than sufficient for most of my portrait work, and much faster than Adobe's PS. You can make your own brush tools in LR easily for key functions like hair, iris brightening and sharpening, dropping the red in the whites of the eyes, skin smoothing harsh pores and smoothing and adding gloss to the lips. Buying brushes is an alternative, but you will kick yourself for being so lazy after you see how they do it because it is very simple to do yourself. Bottom line is LR provides about 80 to 85 percent of everything anyone needs to make a good portrait image look good enough for most clients / subjects. If you need more PS is the penultimate. My old process was LR first, and then for fine touches, if required PS. PS has everything, including tools like liquify, patch, as well as excellent tools for masking, but again PS is much slower, and most of the time not required to more than satisfy more subjects.

This said I seldom use LR anymore because Phase One's Capture One Professional lets me do what LR does plus very precise control of all my colors, especially skin color, tone, and shading, and layers that are easy to access by name like PS. Moreover it has a much better raw engine than Adobe for Nikon raw files. With Capture One when I need a feature in PS I click the Edit In, and it the cloned image is sent in a tiff to PS where I can add as much magic as I want. When I close the file it appears as a new cloned variant in tiff format beside the one I sent to PS.

Even good models who know how to apply their makeup will benefit from having a hair stylist / makeup artist at a shoot. The good ones are extraordinarily observant, and will notice the small things that can ruin a good shot like the angle of a necklace, hair, the flow of the dress, as well as the models angles and limbs staying extended while shooting, and thereby insuring very little extra time will spend in post processing.

There is nothing wrong with using programs like Portrait Professional but the style of the image will not be uniquely your own which may, or may not be important to you. Portrait Professional, and Perfectly Clear are definitely two of the best choices for portrait modules, and as someone mentioned earlier in the thread Portraiture for PS is very good for skin tones. Portrait Professional gives the user more precise control, but more easily overdone than Perfectly Clear. I personally would try both software programs to see which one serves your purpose, Perfectly Clear is the faster of the two, but less precise control, but also harder to screw up. lol.

In any image the less it is edited, or needs to be edited, the better the final image will be. Less editing is more.

TriShooter

Making good portraits does not take place in post processing. Minor enhancing of portraits in the last stage of the process before printing is expected, but major editing is a highly undesirable, and usually directly attributable to the mistakes portrait photographers make when creating the original raw image.

Good lighting is the single most important aspect of portrait photography, and in reality is the key to all great images. Photographers are painting an image on the sensor using the reflected light from the subject. Harsh lighting from small light sources, like the sun, undiffused flash and strobe lights create hard deep shadows if the light source is not shaped with screens, reflectors, grids, and soft boxes with enough power to overwhelm the sun, or through other means. We can move our subjects into the edge of a shadow using a reflector to create a larger, more diffused light source, assuming we are not shooting film noir with gorgeous / handsome models, or actors / actresses.

Photography is a creative activity that operates a lot like a production line after the image is taken. If I am fixing mistakes at the end of the production line in post processing I recognize that I am correcting the mistakes I made earlier in the production process with the incorrect exposure, camera movement, using the wrong aperture, shutter speed, the wrong ISO, or lighting my subject poorly with too small a light source, or poor strobe placement.

When shooting sports, and wildlife we have to push the limits frequently working with whatever lighting is available but we still have control over else but the lighting. With portrait photography the lighting is the real key to great images.

TomB

If you want to see what you can do with these packages go download a bunch of mugshots. Then try your best to make the folks look like movie stars. It is great practice and you will quickly find your 'limit' in skin tone and wrinkle improvement.

Beso

I occasionally use Portrait Professional to retouch portraits. Portrait Professional can be a good tool for quick edits IF one is careful about how the program is used. My experience with Portrait Professional tells me the default values typically go too far. Using the defaults or pushing beyond the defaults can result in a plastic look. Other programs such a Portraiture and Alien Skin are widely used in the industry and are worth a look. Often one can find 30-day trial periods which may remove much of the guesswork when selecting a program for your style.

I have found my clients span the gamut when it comes to post processing. Some want and love the 10-year younger/thinner look. Others want something which reflects them as they see themselves in a mirror nicely made up. I think it is best to always ask the client what they desire in terms of final product. I typically remove blemishes that are not permanent but everything else stays unless specifically requested to be removed such as scars, moles, etc. Proper selection and use of lighting can also reduce the post processing time/effort.

tektrader

I bought Portrait Pro just before my daughter graduated her degree. I took a heap of Photos as you can imagine.

I them had a good go with the software on my wife and daughters face. Be very careful, you don't want to go through what I did. Comments like " we aren't perfect enough already? " " That doesn't even look like me"

I suggest go a long long way from the defaults and just fix a few blemishes and contour the shading. Happy wife is a happy life.

spraynpray

Solid gold advice @tektrader!

Parke1953

I live by that last line. :o3