Portrait photography is one of the biggest genres in the industry. It is also one of the most competitive types of photography. If you plan to stay ahead of the competition, having a great workflow will greatly improve your performance.
Portrait photography benefits greatly from good retouching skills. Unfortunately, editing a large number of images can be time consuming. Most photographers would probably prefer to go out and shoot more of their subjects instead of being stuck behind a screen, editing dozens of images. Photographing more people makes more money and this is why many high-end photographers hire outside editors.
However, for most of us, hiring an outside editor may not be financially viable. Fortunately, as technology continues to improve, the editing process can be reduced with the use of AI.
Estonian company Retouch4me has created something remarkable with its software suite. This is the same company that made it 3D LUT Creator. Its latest software suite is a couple of leaps and bounds ahead.
Retouch4me Heal
When it comes to portrait photo editing, it’s almost imperative to use healing features in retouching software. For most of us, skin isn’t always perfect. Temporary imperfections in our skin will be captured on camera and if they are not healed, they will become permanent features.
In many cases, problems like sores, acne, redness, and even skin damage need to be eliminated. To do this, two of the most useful tools in Photoshop are the Spot Healing Brush and the Healing Brush. These two things are generally enough to clear up some points that need to be healed.
The downside is that this is one of the more time consuming parts of portrait retouching. This adds up to the number of portraits you need to edit. That is why Retouch4me Heal software is extremely useful.
This software is very easy to use. Once installed, it will appear at the bottom of the filters tab in Photoshop. The software launches almost instantly, and after a second or two, the healing preview is complete.
Along the top of the software, you have several options. These include the ability to reduce the impact of the software using the sensitivity slider. You can also select the mask box if you want to create a mask. Alternatively, clicking the “Original” button in the top left part allows you to switch back and forth between before and after.
After you click the “apply” button, the software will take a few seconds to finish its work. It’s remarkable how fast the software works and the amount of time saved makes it worth every penny.
Results are, of course, the most important part of the equation, and the wound-healing AI software from Retouch4me is truly impressive. In the before and after images below, you’ll notice how the software is smart enough to solve any problem without overwhelming it. This also happens while using the software at maximum settings.
Retouch4me Dodge & Burn
Diving and burning is one of the most powerful ways to sculpt and correct skin tones. No matter how well done it is, the lighting in a portrait is not always perfect and this is where the dodge and burn features are super useful.
For example, uneven spots can distract you. With dodging and burning, you can fix most problems related to uneven skin tone. It’s probably the most effective way to retouch portraits. Unfortunately, it’s often the most time-consuming part of the editing process.
There’s such a thing as going overboard in editing, and dodging and burning can sometimes get out of hand. However, even when used on its own, it can last for hours. This is why the dodge and burn software from Retouch4me is, without a doubt, the most useful and impactful.
Again, the software only takes a few seconds to launch, and once you hit apply, the effect is visible almost immediately.
The two images above demonstrate the before and after, and as you can see, the results are quite powerful. Light and dark tones around the forehead, chin, and nose areas are evened out without being abrupt. Doing this manually is time consuming, but here we have software that can accomplish the task incredibly well in just a few seconds.
Retouch4me portrait photo albums
As photographers, we use light to sculpt our subjects. Sometimes the lighting isn’t perfect everywhere and this is why retouching is so helpful for our production. Portrait Volumes enhance key areas in portraits, such as the lips, eyes, and nose area. All of this is to create a result with more depth and a more three-dimensional appearance.
Admittedly, this isn’t the most time-consuming part of the editing process; however, with a large series of portraits, the time increases.
The software works in almost the same way as the Dodge and Burn and Heal software. And again, the speed and quality of the results speak for themselves.
As you can see in the comparison above, the software helps to bring more depth to the portrait. Features like eyes and lips appear more prominently, which is important in portraits. The only thing that would improve this software is if it could be extended to include the subject’s hair. For now, the software doesn’t appear to make major changes to the subject’s hair. However, this is not a big deal.
Suite Retouch4me
The three pieces of software discussed above are important parts of Retouch4me. They contain the most useful features and provide the greatest impact on the workflow. You can comfortably stick with the above three and not miss out on much. Other software, Skin color, Bright eyes, Eye circuitand White teeth very happy to have. All in all, they’re great; individually, however, they do not have the greatest impact on your workflow and final results. final Clean background software is a bit more appropriate and is only recommended if you take a lot of portraits with lighter backgrounds.
Having said that, this is the end result when all the features of the software are applied to a portrait.
The final image also has increased contrast and exposure. Colors in images have also been graded a bit.
Epilogue
Whenever someone discusses AI and retouching, the knee-jerk reaction can be negative. We assume that this software will make people’s skin look like plastic and smoother than any level of detail on people. Retouch4me is the first software suite to appear on the market that helps understand how to make edits.
Software like Dodge and Burn and Portrait Volumes show amazing understanding because the results are so amazing. Even at the maximum setting, the results don’t seem too high. Of course, as with most things, subtlety is key; however, with Retouch4me, it’s surprisingly not required.
Feel free to browse through the entire series of portraits and get results your clients love. That’s actually what happened in my case. With Retouch4me, I was able to edit 26 portraits in just over an hour and the clients loved the results. Some of the images are collaged with lead images.
When you combine a little color grading and a few operations that you normally apply to your portraits with Retouch4me software, you have the most powerful and capable editing workflow available today.
