| Tips
and Tricks
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Face sculpting
Some faces are already extremely attractive, and in these cases
you'll find that the control has little effect. In others, using
the control too much can change the subject's appearance a little
too much and you can risk changing their identity. To give you
an idea of how this works, the features and attributes that
sculpting measures and reacts to are:
- Positioning of eyes (how far apart, vertical symmetry, how
widely opened)
- Lips: width, shape and degree of smile
- Noses: size, shape, position relative to eyes and mouth
- Bone structure: particularly cheek bones and jaw
- Overall length and width of the face
- Shape and definition of outer lines of the face
Therefore if your subject's eyes are quite close together,
sculpting will move them slightly further apart - if the nose
is quite large, sculpting will slightly reduce it and so on.
For portraits: if you don’t want to alter your subject structurally leave this control set to zero.
BUT: Note that 80%+ of our feedback on the
sculpting has been highly positive. Used on lower levels you'll
find that a slight enhancement can make a huge difference to
the overall aesthetic result. Our aim is to create pictures
which give the impression that the subject has been caught on
her best day, looking absolutely fantastic but without looking
"doctored". If you try using the feature gently you'll see what
we mean, and if you're still not sure, do what we did and ask
customers what they like. Our research shows that in the majority
of cases people want to look great, and they don't mind a little
digital help if it gives them a picture that they'll treasure. |
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Skin tone controls
Sometimes you need a high-sheen and glamorous finish for skin
tone, and at other times you'll want to retain all of the character
and texture without losing any definition. Please experiment
with the two new controls for "Airbrush" and "Skin toner"
to see the different effects that you can create.
Try moving them both to zero and gently adding until you reach
the point where tone is visibly improved but the definition
still has good texture and isn’t too glossy.
Then try setting one control half way, then moving the other
up and down to see the difference. The effects that these two
controls have are linked, so the more you try different combinations,
the sooner you'll discover the effects that work best for each
picture.
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Lighting
As with many features, this works differently on a case-by-case
basis with each of your pictures. The purpose of this option
is to remove unwanted shadows or highlights on the face. You'll find that
in a well-lit shot there's often no need to use this at all,
whereas in poorer conditions it comes in very handy to lighten
the face. Experiment with the amount and flatten slide controls
with each picture - usually up to 30% of each does the job,
but you can go higher if circumstances demand. |
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Eye
and teeth whitening
It's as simple as it sounds. Note that the area control determines
how large a section of the picture is affected - for example
if you maximize this for teeth, you'll see whitened gums. Again,
each picture varies so use CTRL to zoom in while you move the
control up and down to find the right level. |
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White
balance
By popular request this now comes as standard. Experiment with
this control in conjunction with the lighting sliders to achieve
optimal brightness, color balance and shadow removal. |
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Open
/ closed mouth
Make sure you click on this option as appropriate when you’re marking points around the mouth – you’ll see the control on the left of your screen.
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Touch-up
and restore brushes
Give them a go! On many images these are ideal for a few essential
edits which add huge improvement to the overall image. These
are:
- Using touch-up gently around the eyes. It'll get rid of
wrinkles / crows feet, bags under the eyes etc, for a much
fresher look. Several wedding photographers have commented
that this is ideal for touching up pictures of the bride that
are shot at receptions - how easily we forget that these ladies
have been up for 15 hours and need a rest! Gentle touch-up
puts the freshness back into the face without over-editing.
- Blemishes: If your subject has individual imperfections
that you want to remove without applying skin enhancement
to the whole face, use the touchup brush to quickly zap the
affected area.
- Chins: they come in all shapes and sizes and effects will
vary so experiment with both brushes to optimize chin definition.
Sometimes you may wish to remove or reduce the appearance
of double chins or unwanted fat from the chin area, in which
case you should use the touchup brush. Conversely, on occasion
you will see that skin tone enhancement can slightly reduce
definition of the jaw-line, so in these cases use the restore
brush to put those attractive strong lines back in.
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Hair,
glasses, jewellery, adornments
Portrait Professional was designed with faces in mind, not accessories.
When you use the skin tone controls to enhance and smooth facial
texture or remove imperfections, you'll find that on occasion
it will gently blur the appearance of "non-skin" items such
as glasses and thin strands of hair, necklaces and so forth.
This is because the software has been trained to gently even
out colors and tones.
When this happens, use the restore brush to correct any loss
of definition. This is best done using CTRL to zoom in on the
affected area.
Alternately, sometimes you'd rather just eliminate the odd
unwanted wisp of hair that has blown across the face - in this
case you should use the touchup brush to wipe it out. |
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