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Perfect Photo Suite 7 is the latest bundle release of products from onOne Software. It contains seven separate products, that when combined, will provide you with just about everything you need to handle even the most complex of photographic post processing tasks.
The seven products are Perfect Effects 4 (formerly known as PhotoTools) for adding photographic effects, Perfect Portrait 2 for working with portraits, Perfect Mask 5, for masking images, Perfect Layers 3 for the ability to use layers in Lightroom and Apple Aperture, Perfect Resize 7.5 for photographic enlargements, FocalPoint 2 for adding depth-of-field to your images, and new to this lineup is Perfect B&W for creating stunning black and white images.
Also new to Perfect Photo 7 is the fact that it comes in 3 different editions – Standard, Lightroom and Aperture, and Premium Editions. For more information about what the differences are between these editions and the pricing, check out the comparison page at onOne’s website.
With the Perfect Photo Suite you get the most current version of each of the 7 products. Two of them are the same that came with the prior version of the suite so for further information about FocalPoint 2 and Perfect Mask 5, please refer to my prior reviews. For this review I will look at Perfect Effects 4. To see what is required to run the onOne Plug-in Suite, please refer to the specs page for proper minimum system requirements.
Perfect Portrait 2
Perfect Portrait 2 is the second generation of onOne’s portrait retouching software. It gives you the ability to quickly and easily retouch portraits through the automation of many time consuming tasks. It automatically finds facial features in your images and through the latest techniques in retouching, enhances your image.
The way this works is when you have a photo with a face or two in it that you want to adjust. You just have to open it in Perfect Portrait in Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture. Once it loads, it is going to automatically make its own best guess on the initial processing. From there you have the tools that will let you refine your portrait quickly and easily. You then apply the changes and if you so choose you can save them as a preset which can be really handy if you are processing a set of similar images.
So what is new with Perfect Portrait 2?
• Retouch Brush – gives you the ability to remove distracting acne, stray hairs, veins or other large blemishes with a few simple clicks. Just dab the Retouch Brush on an imperfection to make it disappear.
• Perfect Brush – can be turned on when using the Paint-in Effect Basic Brushes or the Masking Brush. It will give you the ability to achieve precise edge-detected masking with the new Perfect Brush and it will allow you to smoothly apply or remove adjustments to the specific area that you are working on without going outside the area that you are restricting yourself to. This means that if you want to bring out the impact in the eyes, you can better isolate your efforts without impacting the skin around the eyes.
• Skin Blemish removal and smoothing – lets you get great looking and much more natural looking skin as Perfect Portrait 2 maintains realistic skin structure so portraits don’t look over retouched. You can quickly reduce wrinkles and deep pores and smooth skin to an even consistency. This can even be used on just the face or the entire body.
• Improved automatic face detection – now provides more the specific it needs. A child needs to be treated differently than an adult, and men and women should be as well. Perfect Portrait 2 now recognizes each person in your image and lets you retouch each one separately. You can speed through your group photo retouching by moving from one face to the next with a simple click of a button.
• Improved automatic feature detection – makes it easier to adjust the features of each face by automatically finding the eyes and mouth automatically. This means you no longer have to spend time painting in these features or use manual wizards to locate them. You can use the new Eye & Mouth Control Points to refine how the features in your image are recognized, allowing you to easily localize where brightening and color enhancements will appear.
Perfect Portrait 2 has really improved in a number of areas. First is the Automatic Feature detection that allows you to better adjust features like the eyes and the mouth. This means no more painting them in. It also gives you better control on how they are modified. The same goes with the improved Automatic Face detection feature as well with its ability to streamline your workflow.
The other big item is the Perfect Brush that lets you be more selective with the areas that you are working on. Like everything else, you could do these kinds of corrections on your own in Photoshop, but the amount of time that you can save through the use of Perfect Portrait 2, will more than pay for itself, and for that I can easily recommend this product.
