'Portrait Professional' or Photoshop CS4?

bobiscuit

bobiscuit

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Is there anything else out there that's stand-alone, quick to use and has lots of customisable options?

After playing around with the trial version of Portrait Professional, I think it's almost ideal for my needs, but I would like a wee bit more customisation than it offers.

Anything better?
 
Hmm...

I have been planning to get Photoshop CS4. Maybe not quite yet, but I wouldn't want to waste money on software like Portrait Professional if I'd never use it once I got CS4.

How steep a learning curve would it be in CS4 to do the kind of skin processing that Portrait Professional can do? Is there any automation at all?
 
bobiscuit said:
How steep a learning curve would it be in CS4 to do the kind of skin processing that Portrait Professional can do? Is there any automation at all?
Click to expand...

It's quite steep, but it depends what you want to achieve.

Tools like Portrait Professional, Portraiture etc are good for where you've got to process a lot of pictures very quickly. Whereas if you're working with a single image to a high end retouch then CS4 is the way to go.

You can create actions / droplets etc in CS4 but I find that I always need to make manual adjustments anyway even within the actions.
 
:agree:

Photoshop has a very steep learning curve... I've been messing with it for a couple of years and I've still only scratched the surface. :)

Portrait Professional is a very adaptable piece of software. I'm not keen on the face sculpting aspect of it so I tend to turn it off straight away. If you buy the studio version, you'll get the standalone product along with the Photoshop plug-in.

My workflow using Portrait Professional usually involves opening the RAW file first in ACR to sort out sharpness and any minor tweaks and then I open up Photoshop proper and go to the Portrait Professional plug-in if it's needed.

Si
 
There is a huge price difference between the 2 (unless you have an educational discount). I was a tester for Portrait Pro and didn't really rate it. The skin smoothing is ok and I can actually do it quicker in CS3 than on Portrait Pro.

Portraiture is a better plug-in, but you need photoshop to start with. You'd be able to do much more with CS4 in the long run. I wouldn't waste my money on it (and I didn't).
 
To do in photoshop what portrait pro does would take a LOT of time and skill, the various aspects of just the skin smoothing would take a while to learn properly without the time involved to select the various areas in each photo as your working, as for the face sculping thats not really for beginners, yet in portrait pro it's quick and easy to do both. Personally I'd buy portrait pro if you do a lot of portrait work it'll make it's cost back in no time.
 
Just to add another option - Portraiture 2 can work as a plugin for Lightroom 2 - that might be a good middle ground price wise!
 
Portrait Pro is good for quick skin smoothing, or if your CS4 skills are a little rusty.

I tend to use Portrait Pro for initial changes, and then fine tune the results in CS4, as I find this way it dramatically cuts down on editing time.
 
Sounds like Portrait Pro would suit me best for now. I'm just after something easy for skin that allows customisation. I'm not a pro so don't really have time to spend on serious photoshoppery.

I use Paint Shop Pro and GIMP for most of my editing - looking to get into Photoshop at the end of the year when I will hopefully have more time to play with it.

Thanks all :thumbs:
 
Portrait pro is totally over rated! Photoshop however is almost an essential!
 
Scarecrow said:
Portrait Pro is good for quick skin smoothing, or if your CS4 skills are a little rusty.

I tend to use Portrait Pro for initial changes, and then fine tune the results in CS4, as I find this way it dramatically cuts down on editing time.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I use Portrait Pro for skin smoothing nothing else which is very quick. Any other editing is done in Photoshop
 
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