Scubie Loc: Brunswick Georgia

I tried the free trial trial of Portrait Professional and was impressed with it. I was not going to order it because I don't really do that much image restoring. Last night I said, what the heck!! and ordered it. A tip, the software is inexpensive for what it does and yes...you can do the same thing in photoshop but it takes me a long time and the results still are not as good as Portrait Professional. I noticed a place to type in coupons for the software but I did not have any, so I went on line Google Portrait Professional coupons and there was one. It gave me another 15% off. The only problem I had, was registering for the software. My firewall blocked it and I had to use the manual activation. I was ready to ask for my money back, but somehow I got through it. I really complained online about it. Other than that, I think they have a super product. I am really good with computers and registration should be easier. How do others see this. I told them all you had to do with photoshop was get the serial number and enter it into the registration and you are done. Maybe I just had a one time issue.

ebaribeault Loc: Baltimore

I have been using this software for about 3 months now and love it

Old Timer Loc: Greenfield, In.

I had the same problem, never got it activated, they took it of my credit card, and I bought a copy on disc thru Amazon and it activated all right. I would not buy it again as I found ways to do it just as good or better and not have so many programs. I would not recommend it, learn to use what you have. It is only good for one thing and that is portraits, I do not like it unless you have frontal view, side views do not work satisfactory for me.

MWAC Loc: Somewhere East Of Crazy

I don't use it either, I do all my skin cleaning, smoothing and rentexture by hand in PhotoShop. I just like the results better.

DennisK Loc: Pickle City,Illinois

I have it and it makes quick work out of faces that need some help.I consider it sort of a stand alone Photoshop action.

billybob40

They back there service. My pc crashs ever 6 mos. and they put it back on my pc ever time 6 times so for. Just put the numbers in a good place not your pc. have fun with it.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

You can't blame them for your firewall settings. That's like blaming GM for you running your car into a tree. I've had problems with some sites because I use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, for example. I wish the sites would update to work correctly with Firefox but it was my choice to change, not theirs. So I get out and go back to that site with Internet Explorer if it's important to me.

As for PP itself, the quality of the software is superb, it works quickly, and has never locked up on me. I use PP10 quite a bit. The only thing you have to be careful about is using it too heavily. You can cause skin to look like the coating of a wax doll if you're not careful but sometimes that's a good thing. PP is pretty good about choosing things automatically for you but you might want to see what a setting does when it is backed down about 10%. If it doesn't harm the subject's appearance, back it down a little bit more. In other words minimize changes to the person when you can but still keep the improvement.

I've included two photos with this post. One is my wife without PP used and one with PP. They were taken at different times at different metro parks but both during last summer. You wouldn't know the PP version was unnatural unless you saw one without it and one with.

No human is perfect (although I think my wife is!) so airbrushing was used throughout the film era. I'm sure this thread will move to arguments about whether PP is artificial, cheating, fake, and all that, but personally I find it to be an inexpensive, easy, mostly automated way of doing what it would take a long time to do in PS. It can be controlled to barely do anything just like PS or it can be used too heavily.

As I expand on my portraiture for fun and profit, I will be using PP10 quite a bit although I will also work with PS CS5. By the way, PP10 also installs itself as a plug-in to PS CS5 if you have it. That sounds like a redundancy but it is still a time saver as a plug-in too. I typically work with the histogram of the photo, contrast, color saturation, etc. in PS CS5, then pull up the PP10 plug-in to let it do what it does, then save the result and go back to PS to touch up anything else or remove a stray hair, etc. then save the final product again.

Enjoy!

Without PP10


With Minor Use of PP10

kamoopsipooh Loc: Big Island

I was going to ask about this program. Thanks guys, you've helped me make up my mind.

Scubie Loc: Brunswick Georgia

I agee with you, it is not the programs fault, I just did not want to dismantle my firewall setting's and I just thought the manual registration was a bit too complicated. Like I stated, all you had to do with Adobe programs is obtain your code key and type it into a box on the registration srtup...There is no reason PP has to be any more complicated and if they do not change this, they might lose business. Just a thought....I liked you analogy about blaming GM....but you are right...
Hey you did a great job with PP on that pretty woman. It does not look plastic, is that your wife????

Scubie Loc: Brunswick Georgia

oops sorry, that is your wife....you lucky guy!!!!!!!!!!!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

It doesn't look plastic because I was frugal in the use of it and didn't necessarily let all the automated settings of PP10 stand as they were. And yes, that's my wife. She's a keeper, in my view...