Portrait Professional lets you airbrush away imperfections

Do you ever end up with a really good picture of yourself, except for maybe too much shine on your face from the flash? Or your face looks a bit more red than you would like? Of course. We all have those photos. Portrait Professional can help you touch up those little imperfections.

Anthropics Technology has recently release Version 8 of the software, which now supports Intel Macs as well as PCs. The software is relatively easy to use for basic touch-ups. You simply click five points on the face (with guided instructions) and let the software do the rest of the work.

The software works best with straight on photos of someones face. Side views are more difficult to work with and more likely to come out looking a bit off. There are special settings such as glamour, drama, face slimming and improve complexion which you can use with one click. The only thing that appeared to happen with the glamour setting was a rather awkward elongating of the neck on the photos we tried though.

It was fun to play with and change eye colors, lighten hair and turn photos to sepia tones. If you photo subject has a tendency to squint when smiling their eyes may come out looking rather like an alien but, for straight on, wide open eyed photos, the little touch-ups did improve the look.

The only complaint is that, once altered, the photos seem a little more flat. Maybe it was just the photos we used but the people looked a little more Stepford-ish in a way. They all had really good skin though!

[Thanks Christina for the photo]

Tags: photo editing, PhotoEditing, Portrait Professoinal