JimBobLc
Posts: 192
Martinsburg, West Virginia, US
Are you planning to buy one? I suggest use a free software (like paint.net) until you get to the point where you are consistently finding things you need to do that it won't let you do.
Then use the trial versions of the pay softwares to see how they handle the things you can't do easily in the free ware.
Then purchase the pay software that lets you do what you want to do.
But seems like PS is the industry standard probably easier to get help from other users if you find yourself wanting to do things in PS that you can't figure out on your own.
3) My wife downloaded a copy to make her Facebook and personal photos look good. It is not for professional photos. It has a big tendency to "warp" faces.
Gimp = good enough for 99% of the work you see on here. A lot of guys boast about 32bit editing and CMYK support that Photoshop gives you, then you see that for them these are just words
As a free download Gimp is pretty hard to beat.
Photoshop = if the get the full version then it's great, does lots of funky stuff some of which you you cant do with Gimp. The cut down version (PS Elements) is god too - but very much same same as Gimp in terms of features.
Portrait Professional = actually pretty good for a quick fix. Dont set the corrections too high and it can give you a quick retouch will will usually make your pictures a lot better. You cant do the same subtle effects you can with the full version of PS so it's not really a competitor though.
I have used Gimp a lot on my Linux machines, but I own (bought) Photoshop and got certified with Adobe, so that is where my heart lies.
I hate portrait professional. Even their ads show such a transformation from human to plastic. I do like soft skin though, and use the Imagenomic Portraiture 2.3 plugin which you can do much better with.
As a related note, I also bought OnOne version 6 which had Perfect Portrait. Again, I find it useless for my workflow. I have since upgraded to version 7.1 and it is not much better for that, although the other filters are handy from time to time.
Bottom line, if you can learn in Photoshop how to do the effects without using filters, then, you can adequately determine which filters you can use as a time saving feature without overdoing it.
I'm no expert, I have just been doing this a long time.
KonstantKarma
Posts: 2,033
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Virtual Studio wrote:
Gimp = good enough for 99% of the work you see on here. A lot of guys boast about 32bit editing and CMYK support that Photoshop gives you, then you see that for them these are just words
As a free download Gimp is pretty hard to beat.
Photoshop = if the get the full version then it's great, does lots of funky stuff some of which you you cant do with Gimp. The cut down version (PS Elements) is good too - but very much same same as Gimp in terms of features.
Portrait Professional = actually pretty good for a quick fix. Dont set the corrections too high and it can give you a quick retouch will will usually make your pictures a lot better. You cant do the same subtle effects you can with the full version of PS so it's not really a competitor though.
This except that GIMP is a little more high-tech than Elements - It allows you much broader access to color curves, dodge and burn, and other advanced things. I use GIMP for my heavier parts of retouching, Elements for certain things. My workflow actually involves opening the same image back and forth in both for the things I need, mainly because elements can run some plugins GIMP can't.
I also like Corel Paintshop Pro Ultimate x5.
I use Photoshop cs6 and Lightroom 4.3 for most everything now, Lightroom is a must have if you are working with RAW files.
Gimp and Photoshop have a Sharp learning curve.
Paintshop Pro or Photoshop elements are a little more easy to learn the tools, then make the transition.
All the tutorials are good for Photoshop assuming you know the basics. (Tools, layers destructive/nondestructive, crop etc...)
Corel tutorials are a little more beginner friendly.
Gimp, well not much in the way of helpful tutorials. But it is powerful and free.
Portrait Pro, you might as well just use online filters and iphone filters etc...
Kevin_Connery
Posts: 3,236
Fullerton, California, US
Kelly Anne-Marie wrote: What is your opinion on:
1) Gimp?
2) Photoshop?
3) Portrait Professional?
GIMP is a full-featured digital editing tool, with some tools more advanced than what Photoshop offers out of the box, but is missing many features required by a lot of professionals, and has an interface that works best if you think like a programmer and not a photographer/artist. But it certainly can be learned.
Photoshop is a full-featured digital editing tool with a very robust "ecosystem", and is the industry standard. It offers capabilities and functional scaling that no single other product can match.
Portrait Professional is a specialty application which in some ways requires more of an 'eye' to avoid having it do unnatural things for you, but which can be used to good advantage--but almost invariably only by someone who has worked extensively with Photoshop or similar, and/or has a background in art. And for that, it's most often used as a plug-in to Photoshop than as a standalone tool. (Think about it; the ads for it show extremely obviously artificial results: who is their target audience?)
Essentially, you're asking for a comparison between two fruits and one sauce.
1) Gimp? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
2) Photoshop? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
3) Portrait Professional? A tool made to be overused by lazy photographers, IMO. Look at its advertising. It takes horribly-photographed models with no makeup and tries to make them look reasonably attractive. The ads don't work and most real-world examples I've seen look downright tragic -- like a horrible accident in the spray-tanning booth.
Orca Bay Images wrote: 1) Gimp? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
2) Photoshop? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
3) Portrait Professional? A tool made to be overused by lazy photographers, IMO. Look at its advertising. It takes horribly-photographed models with no makeup and tries to make them look reasonably attractive. The ads don't work and most real-world examples I've seen look downright tragic -- like a horrible accident in the spray-tanning booth.
With all due respect sir, and no attended discredit to your thoughts nor feelings but in my own opinion there is no such as a 'Fugly model" ...I think there are models looks of ones distaste but surely if they were "fugly" they wouldn't have ANY modeling jobs with any business and/or photographers.
But thanks for your take on the subject.
Kelly Anne-Marie wrote: I think there are models looks of ones distaste but surely if they were "fugly" they wouldn't have ANY modeling jobs with any business and/or photographers.
But thanks for your take on the subject.
KonstantKarma
Posts: 2,033
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Orca Bay Images wrote: 1) Gimp? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
2) Photoshop? Fine, if not overused. It should never be used to compensate for inept photography or to try to make a heinously fugly model look human.
3) Portrait Professional? A tool made to be overused by lazy photographers, IMO. Look at its advertising. It takes horribly-photographed models with no makeup and tries to make them look reasonably attractive. The ads don't work and most real-world examples I've seen look downright tragic -- like a horrible accident in the spray-tanning booth.
Gimp is a program written by some clever people who don't all quite have the expertise of the people from Photoshop, nor even a fraction of the ability to make a usable UI.
Photoshop is good at what it does, and complicated enough that it's like using a CLI instead of a GUI.
Portrait Porfessional is sort of like instagram, but works on pictures that aren't square.
Joann Empson wrote: 1) GIMP respects its users' four essential software freedoms.
2) Photoshop violates its users' four essential software freedoms.
3) Portrait Professional violates its users' four essential software freedoms.
I don't need to alter Photoshop's source code to meet my own needs. I don't need to see the source code. And while it would be nice to give away copies of Photoshop to my pals for free, that's wrong on so many levels. People should be able to profit from their work and Adobe put a lot of work into PS. Software developers should have the right of product protection, otherwise they'll go broke and the best software we'll have is GIMP.
...and the new version of Portrait Professional v11 is pretty damn unbelievable. I dare say that for the average portrait it's awesome, not at full tilt 100% though... you have to use it like you use spice on food: enough to taste both the food and the spice.
But, it depends on what you use it for, and how you use it.
Orca Bay Images wrote: 3) Portrait Professional? A tool made to be overused by lazy photographers, IMO. Look at its advertising. It takes horribly-photographed models with no makeup and tries to make them look reasonably attractive. The ads don't work and most real-world examples I've seen look downright tragic -- like a horrible accident in the spray-tanning booth.
Lazy? sheeeesh... more like I'd like to have a life that doesn't consist of spending needless hours at the computer. PP can do in 30 seconds what it would take me 20 minutes or more to do by hand, and the client would likely never appreciate the difference between the two.
In some respects, their do themselves a disservice with their Ads. There is no reason to run the programs styles at 100%, which is what the ADs reflect. I have a recipe that I call "freckles" that eliminates most of the problems, but which leaves freckles in place. That way, I can spend my PS time working on bigger issues then pixel level retouching, something 99% of my clients wouldn't even notice.
That's not to say that pixel level retouching isn't a valuable skill for the right client, but you have use these tools based on the job, not on casting pearls before swine.
In answer to the comment that Photo Pro does weird things to the shape of faces, you can turn that feature off, or adjust it to whatever level you like, just like every other feature of the program.
And no, I don't have any need to see the source code, or modify it. I'm not a computer programmer.
Smedley Whiplash wrote: Lazy? sheeeesh... more like I'd like to have a life that doesn't consist of spending needless hours at the computer. PP can do in 30 seconds what it would take me 20 minutes or more to do by hand, and the client would likely never appreciate the difference between the two.
In some respects, their do themselves a disservice with their Ads. There is no reason to run the programs styles at 100%, which is what the ADs reflect. I have a recipe that I call "freckles" that eliminates most of the problems, but which leaves freckles in place. That way, I can spend my PS time working on bigger issues then pixel level retouching, something 99% of my clients wouldn't even notice.
That's not to say that pixel level retouching isn't a valuable skill for the right client, but you have use these tools based on the job, not on casting pearls before swine.
I noticed PP does a lot of things on different levels, I just don't know if it's totally a good thing even if you use some sliders at ...15% for instance, PP likes to add a film (if you will) over the finished photo in the background that looks like crap and then needs gimped out.
Kelly Anne-Marie wrote: I noticed PP does a lot of things on different levels, I just don't know if it's totally a good thing even if you use some sliders at ...15% for instance, PP likes to add a film (if you will) over the finished photo in the background that looks like crap and then needs gimped out.
Sure, but are you referring to the unnatural skin texture that PP generates?
Here's a fix. Are you familiar with the High/Low retouch thread? I'm not sure where it is, but what it essentially does is separate the photo into 4 layers:
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=439098
Hi16
Hi8
Low
background
The intention is to retouch skin color and shading on the Low layer, and pixel level imperfections on either the hi8 or hi16 layers, but....
If you run PP on a copy of the background layer, and then place it like so:
Hi16
Hi8
Portrait Professional layer
Low
background
You get the skin texture/pores of the person back, but without the blemishes, and what little there is left can easily be corrected on the Hi16 layer.
This sample is all at 100%, but you get the idea:
The intention would then be to mask the PP layer and paint it in as a "time-saver" for such a wicked complexion.
Now here's the same face, but with a neutral complexion, after I've retouched the Hi-16 layer, and painted in some of the masked PP layer (similar to what I would expect from a model without makeup)
a) I’ve never used GIMP, so I can’t give an informed assessment of it. However, I’m very confident that nothing can come close to matching the capabilities of Photoshop.
b) Photoshop is the most capable photo editing software there is – and it has a VERY steep learning curve. After more than a year, there’s still a lot more about Photoshop that I don’t know about it than what I know. For more than a year, I've dedicated every available brain cell to learning Photoshop.
c) I’ll probably get flamed for this, but Portrait Professional has its place – although for me it’s a very limited one. When I use it, it’s for a specific purpose. The first thing I do is turn all the automatic features off and reset all the sliders to zero or 50 – whatever it is that represents “no change” for that specific feature.
If a model has very dark eyes, I can quickly lighten the irises just enough that there’s some color and life in them (although more and more I do this in Photoshop). It’s faster to whiten teeth and darken lips in PPro than in Photoshop – al though I don’t want the software deciding how much to lighten or darken things. A little bit goes a long way.
Sometimes I’ll use PPro to lighten hair overall or to blend splotchy or uneven skin tones a bit (although I'm much more likely to use Imagenomic Portraiture for the latter purpose). If one eye is smaller than the other, sometimes I’ll use it to widen that eye just a little.
For me PPro is just a timesaver for specific tasks As time goes on I use it less and less – and D&B more and more (which is why I often spend three hours or more retouching one photo).
I don’t like blurring, and I’ve been known to spend over an hour dodging and burning one line is a model’s forehead when I could blur it out in a minute or so. I go for weeks without opening PPro.
If I have something like {"Orig Layer") in the photo in the post above mine, I'll reluctantly use Portraiture (before doing anything else except Healing in Photoshop) - and use a layer mask to confine its effects to a limited area of the photo.
If I could just have one retouching tool, Photoshop (and Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with it) would be my first choice, Capture One would be my second – and PPro would be my last.
Sure, but are you referring to the unnatural skin texture that PP generates?
Here's a fix. Are you familiar with the High/Low retouch thread? I'm not sure where it is, but what it essentially does is separate the photo into 4 layers:
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=439098
Hi16
Hi8
Low
background
The intention is to retouch skin color and shading on the Low layer, and pixel level imperfections on either the hi8 or hi16 layers, but....
If you run PP on a copy of the background layer, and then place it like so:
Hi16
Hi8
Portrait Professional layer
Low
background
You get the skin texture/pores of the person back, but without the blemishes, and what little there is left can easily be corrected on the Hi16 layer.
This sample is all at 100%, but you get the idea:
The intention would then be to mask the PP layer and paint it in as a "time-saver" for such a wicked complexion.
Now here's the same face, but with a neutral complexion, after I've retouched the Hi-16 layer, and painted in some of the masked PP layer (similar to what I would expect from a model without makeup)
Camerosity wrote: a) I’ve never used GIMP, so I can’t give an informed assessment of it. However, I’m very confident that nothing can come close to matching the capabilities of Photoshop.
b) Photoshop is the most capable photo editing software there is – and it has a VERY steep learning curve. After more than a year, there’s still a lot more about Photoshop that I don’t know about it than what I know. For more than a year, I've dedicated every available brain cell to learning Photoshop.
c) I’ll probably get flamed for this, but Portrait Professional has its place – although for me it’s a very limited one. When I use it, it’s for a specific purpose. The first thing I do is turn all the automatic features off and reset all the sliders to zero or 50 – whatever it is that represents “no change” for that specific feature.
If a model has very dark eyes, I can quickly lighten the irises just enough that there’s some color and life in them (although more and more I do this in Photoshop). It’s faster to whiten teeth and darken lips in PPro than in Photoshop – al though I don’t want the software deciding how much to lighten or darken things. A little bit goes a long way.
Sometimes I’ll use PPro to lighten hair overall or to blend splotchy or uneven skin tones a bit (although I'm much more likely to use Imagenomic Portraiture for the latter purpose). If one eye is smaller than the other, sometimes I’ll use it to widen that eye just a little.
For me PPro is just a timesaver for specific tasks As time goes on I use it less and less – and D&B more and more (which is why I often spend three hours or more retouching one photo).
I don’t like blurring, and I’ve been known to spend over an hour dodging and burning one line is a model’s forehead when I could blur it out in a minute or so. I go for weeks without opening PPro.
If I have something like {"Orig Layer") in the photo in the post above mine, I'll reluctantly use Portraiture before anything else - and use a layer mask to confine its effects to a limited area of the photo.
If I could just have one retouching tool, Photoshop (and Adobe Camera Raw, which comes with it) would be my first choice, Capture One would be my second – and PPro would be my last.
Hi Camerosity!...Great to hear from you , it's been awhile.
Thanks for you adding to the conversation...Photoshop is something I may want to learn then, I know NOTHING about it...lol.
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