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I am not going to lie, I used to do this for a living. And although my job title was different, I called it “Distortion of the concept and perception of real beauty on women.. mmm, technician”. Yep, those were the days. When I spent countless hours with a digital pen on my hand, erasing “imperfections” and adding “features” to innumerable images.

I’ve tried automated photo retouching software before, and even some of the most expensive ones (based on color range and skin tones to do retouching), I was never impressed and the results looked extremely airbrushed and fake. So it was with great reluctance that I decided to try version 6 of ‘Portrait Professional’, and mostly because it is currently being offered as a free download.

I can tell you this, the following results are the product of just a few minutes with the program, and truly my first attempts at retouching portraits with it. I have never used this software before and me knowing Adobe PhotoShop for photo retouching is irrelevant, since the interface is different.

Portrait Professional 9 is new portrait airbrushing software that has been “trained” in human beauty. Exceptionally fast and easy to use, and capable of the highest quality touch up, it lets you improve your photos instantly, just by moving sliders.

• Fix skin blemishes such as spots or pimples in a fraction of the time (true)
• Remove grease, sweat or unsightly shine from the skin (true)
• Subtly reshape all or any aspect of the face to reduce the apparent weight of the subject (true)
• Enhance the eye and mouth shape color and sharpness (did not see much difference)
• Automatically smooth, recolor and thicken the subject’s hair (not tested)
• Adjust the lighting on the face to make it more flattering or remove shadows (not tested)

This is one of the few programs that I can actually vouch for, and this is an older version! (manufacturer currently offers version 9 for a fee), so for casual portrait photo retouching, this is a nice piece of software to have around. See the samples (low and high resolution images were tested) and decide for yourself. I was very impressed with some results (last picture and the closeups to see the detail).

Download Portrait Professional v6:
http://downloads.portraitprofessional.com/6.6.1/PortraitProfessionalSetup_en.exe
Request a free registration code (enter your email in this page):
http://www.portraitprofessional.com/de/computerbild/

Once you receive the confirmation email, your serial number will have this format: XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX

In other news: Magazines should be banned from airbrushing photographs in adverts aimed at young people…