Portrait Retouching

I don't normally do portrait/people photography. Can anyone suggest an easy to use, but effective software for someone like me? Looking for simplicity for acne, skin imperfections, teeth whitening, etc.

Thanks.
John

Imagenomic Portraiture. Not cheap, but worth every penny. Great results, very easy to use (I usually just use the default settings) and a real time saver. Nice thing is you can try it out first for free to see if you like it.

http://imagenomic.com/​pt.aspx

Thanks for your response, j-mar. I will definitely look into it.

John

Anyone else care to suggest something?

John

What software do you normally use?

Lightroom's adjustment brushes and spot removal tool work pretty darn well for basic cleanup. I use those almost exclusively unless I'm going for a more thorough glamour or pinup retouch. Lightroom's adjustment brush has presets for things like skin softening, teeth whitening, eyes brightening, etc.

Photoshop is of course the go-to software, but if you're not comfortable with Photoshop fundamentals then it may be frustrating. For more thorough skin cleanup, I like Cameron Rad's "Perfect Lie" technique, there's a tutorial on Youtube for it if you do a cursory search. I made an action to do all the initial setup, which is the cumbersome and tedious part of the retouch. After running the setup actions, it takes only a couple minutes to clean up skin imperfections and acne.

I had some other portrait software that I tried out .. "Portrait Professional" I think? and I felt it changed the photo way, way too much so I hardly used it. The default settings wanted to alter the subject into a creepy caricature, rearranging facial features and doing other over-the-top "corrections," unless you turned almost all the options off. Maybe I'll try it out again some day to see if I can get better results by fidgeting with the settings.

If you're new to portrait retouching, please be careful that you don't overdo it. It's easy to miss the big picture, concentrate too much on the details, and wind up with unnaturally bright white teeth, waxy skin, and plastic-like hair. My usual rule of thumb is, if it looks "shopped" then it's too much.

Portrait professional. http://www.portraitpro​fessional.com/ An amazing product.