Friday, September 13, 2013

REVIEW: Arcsoft Portrait+ (Discount Offer)

Arcsoft Portrait+ Makes Image Editing Easy
Arcsoft Portrait+ Makes Image Editing Easy

One of my favorite books is Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers using Photoshop because I think it does a great job demystifying the subject of portrait editing. With that said, there’s still lots of grunt work involved so I can easily spend 5+ hours editing a single photo. This of course begs the question, what if there were a product that could simplify that process?

Portrait Professional is probably the product most people are familiar with due to their extensive advertising, but when I used it I felt very disappointed. onOne tried to tackle the problem with Perfect Portrait, and they got closer to my desire to have “automatic” enhancements that didn’t look cheesy. There’s also Portraiture and Nik’s Dynamic Skin Softener that can be used with more grunt work to get results that more closely align with my preferences, but both are going to be too tedious to use for an entire face, eye, teeth and lips edit of the average face. This is exactly why ArcSoft created Portrait+ to make auto retouching faces much easier and more  comprehensive in very little time.

Features

Plenty Sliders are available
Plenty Sliders are available

Overall, I found the user interface to be clean and straightforward. It features some test images you can use when you first start, or you can use your own image. It features automatic face detection, but like most implementation of this technique – it often requires some user adjustments to the default wireframe.

Above average facial part recognition and a wealth of presets are some of the strengths
Above average facial part recognition and a wealth of presets are some of the strengths

Once the face has been detected, you simply use the presets or sliders to get your desired look. Simple retouch brushes are included as well.

Bulk Edits with manual settings and presets are first class features
Bulk Edits with manual settings and presets are first class features

One of the highlights of this product is its excellent batch editing support. If you do lots of editing of similar types of images, this can be a huge time saver.

Conclusion

While I like this product better than some that I’ve used in the past, I’m still a hard core do-it-yourself portrait retoucher who prefers to use Portraiture. I’d place this product ahead of the results I’ve obtained using the latest version of Portrait Pro 11, but similar to what I’m used to getting from Perfect Portrait.  This product seems to offer better bulk/batch editing of a large number of photos, but I can’t edit faces that way so I didn’t really test that feature.

Where to order

Click here to learn more or order and use my 15% off coupon code, RMARC , on any ArcSoft product. You can also save 25% off Portrait+ for a limited time when you use the coupon code RMARCPP. Here’s an example that shows how your cart should look (please note, codes and discount amounts may change from what appears in this image):

image

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

I was provided a copy of this product to review.

NOTE: This site requires cookies and uses affiliate linking to sites that use cookies.

If you enjoyed this article, please support future articles like this by making a donation or saving money by using my discount coupon codes. Either way, your support is greatly appreciated!

This blog is intended for freelance writing and sharing of opinions and is not a representative of any of the companies whose links are provided on this site.

The opinions provided are of Ron Martinsen alone and do not reflect the view of any other entity

1 comment:

jeff said...

What are your comparative thoughts on Totally Rad's Pro Retouch 2?