Although most people like to be photographed once in a while, a visit to a professional portrait photographer can be traumatizing. Even if everybody is happy with the end result, the person portrayed will often stare at the portrait for a while and say: “Well, I am not too sure.”
I believe there are two main reasons for this:
1/ As we grow older we tend to see ourselves as who we were instead of who we are. Our own aging is not a process most of us can appreciate.
2/ A portrait is static. It is frozen in time and it can hang on somebody’s wall for decades. The actual face we see tends to move in all directions, talk, smile etc. All those expressions add to the mental image we have of a particular person.
I have tested reason 1/ by giving people photographs that were tweaked with Portrait Professional and despite the fact that the program freshened up the skin and took 15 years of their lives, the response was often that of relief: “Now, that’s me!”
This also happened with somebody who specifically asked me to not do any retouches, and disobeyed her order. She was very pleased with her supernatural looks. Her friends were less enthusiastic: “Well, it is a nice photograph, very good actually, but it just isn’t her!”
Well, as a portrait photographer I know who I work for, so I do use methods to idealize life a bit. I started out doing that in Photoshop, but I soon found out that it was very time consuming, even with a thorough knowledge of the program.
Then about a year ago I bought a program called Portrait Professional by Anthropics Software. At first glance I did not like it. The interface at that time reminded me of 1990′s web pages, but while using it I soon began to change my mind.
In a few simple steps you adjust coordinates in a browser with your original picture in it. It takes half a minute. Then you end up on a page with a lot of sliders where you can alter complexion, eye color, lengthen the neck, re sculpt the cranial form, redden lips or change their shape.
I know, I know, this may sound like a little too much but if you use the sliders with moderation, you will see an image appear that is actually closer to the image you have of the person portrayed because — and let’s be honest about this: today’s high resolution digital SLR’s can be somewhat cruel when it comes to detail and perspective.
The version I have been using for the last year, now also comes as a Photoshop plugin and that will certainly help the work flow even more.
Please check: http://www.portraitprofessional.com/