Meet Facetune - The perfect portrait and selfie editor in your pocket

You can easily retouch your portraits and selfies like a pro using powerful desktop software suites like photoshop and lightroom. Imagine a situation where you don't have access to your laptop and you feel the urge to retouch a group of photographs you just got clicked with your friends. The standard photo editors that come pre-installed on your devices are just too austere for a professional magazine level retouch. Isn't it? Here's where the facetune app enters to your rescue. With facetune installed on your device, you carry flawless retouching capabilities in your pocket. Forget about photoshop and lightroom. You can't ask more from a mobile app like this one. Seriously friends!

Here's what you can do with facetune -

1. Say goodbye to facial marks and blemishes

Using the "patch tool" in the app, you can get rid of all the unwanted facial marks, spots and blemishes.

2. Look clean-shaven (for guys, obviously :p)

Does your facial stubble in the picture make you look shabby? Don't worry. Use the "smooth tool" in the app to get that clean shaven look!

3. Whiten your teeth

Pale teeth can be embarrassing. Use the "whiten teeth" tool to get that flawless smile :)

4. Remove red eyes

Clicking a selfie in low natural light with flash turned on is the main reason why you see that red eye in your photo. With the "red eye" tool, all that you have to do is to just tap on the red eyes, and they're gone! 

5. Look slim

Get rid of that double chin and fat belly using the "reshape tool"

6. Look younger

Using the "smooth tool" & "patch tool", you can reverse all the signs of aging!

6. Color your hair and clothes

Using the "tone picker", you can easily change the color of your hair and clothes to whatever you like.

7. Defocus/Blur the background

With a DSLR, you can easily click a portrait with shallow depth of field. But if you don't have one or if you simply forgot to introduce the effect with your DSLR while shooting the photographs, this app can help. 

8. Plus, a variety of amazing effects!!!

Grab it. It's available for just $4 on Android and iOS.

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4 Steps To Make Colors Pop In Photoshop

Color is very important information when it comes to photography. A good amount of color balance can really make your photograph pop out. In this tutorial I will show you how u can make your photographs more vivid with very simple steps.

We usually work on RGB colors mode, which has three channels, RED, GREEN and BLUE. For printing it’s the CYMK which has 4 channels Cyan, Yellow , Magenta and Black. In this tutorial we will be working on LAB color mode. Follow the stepwise process to achieve vividness in your photographs.

Step 1

Change the color mode from RGB to LAB mode from IMAGE > Mode > LAB color mode. The advantage is, LAB offers separate channels for colors and exposure.

 

Step 2

LAB color mode has two channels A and B for colors where channel A control Magenta and cyan and B controls blue and yellow. The separate channel Lightness controls the exposure of the photograph. When you increase the color you don’t change the exposure of the images.

Now all that you need to do is to increase the contrast of both the channel. When you increase the contrast of these two channels they only affects the color but not the luminance of the color. Luminance is the level of brightness of any color.

Step 3

Select the channel A and apply the contrast either by going to image>Contrast or applying ‘s’ curves. Now repeat the same process for channel B. You can see the difference now. If you have used adjustment layers you can use the opacity slider to control the amount of vividness and makes sure to merge it down.

Step 4

Change the color mode back to RGB from LAB color mode.

See the before and after in the image below

Anup Ghimre

About the Guest Author:

Anup Ghimire is a Nepal based photographer & re-toucher, blogger and
educator. He is mostly interested in landscape and fashion
photography. He also has a blog pixeltut.com and has been doing
video tutorials for lightroom and photoshop. You can follow him on
twitter @anupg44.

 

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Picasa Editing and Retouching tutorial

After sharing an awesome photo editing tutorial in PhotoScape, here I present the next photo editing and retouching tutorial using Google Picasa. The new version of Picasa offers much more to edit photos using a variety of new photo editing effects like HDR(High Dynamic Range), Lomo, Cross process, Comic Print and even Vignette. Editing photos in new Google Picasa(version 3.9) has just became easier and and a lot more funnier. So without wasting any more time, lets go ahead and try out this awesome photo editing trick in Picasa !! You all will definitely love this for sure !

How to edit photos in Picasa ?

1. Open up your photo in Picasa and select the Retouch option in the left window (under the commonly needed fixes with wrench icon).

This removes all sorts of marks and blemishes from your photo. The process of retouching is quite simple –> select the size of brush and click – drag from the point of imperfection to perfection on the skin. I mean, just click-hold at the mark on the skin and then drag-release to the adjacent clearer point on the skin. This process will cover up all the marks/spots and the skin will look a lot more clearer. Have a look at the screenshot below…

2. Now navigate to the third tab (with plain brush icon). Under this tab, select ‘Glow’ and apply the effect with default slider settings.

3. Under the last tab, select ‘Vignette’. And that is it – Retouching and editing has been successfully completed in Google Picasa.

You can play with other effects as well, like – comic-print, pencil-sketch, polaroid and grey. These effects will pop your photo in case you are planning to use it as your Facebook profile picture. Anyways…this was the most basic editing and retouching that can be done using Google Picasa. Have fun – editing your photos !!

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How to Retouch photos in photoscape

It is very easy to retouch and enhance your photos dramatically in photoscape. All that you need to do is to basically run your photo through a series of selected filters available within the program. This form of retouching is especially in favor of those who are not that skilled with professional image editing softwares like Adobe Photoshop. In this tutorial i will guide you how to fix your photos in photoscape in less than 5 minutes.

Photo used in this tutorial:

Woman Face Smiling and Looking Around (credits to: stockphotosforfree.com)

Here’s the short tutorial:

Step 1: Launch Photoscape and select the editor from the circular launcher.

Step 2: Now select your photo (portrait close-up is recommended) and apply bloom from the bottom toolbar. This has to be followed by the application of smart blur under the filters option. You will notice a remarkable improvement in the photo once you have applied these two filters in succession.

Step 3: This is optional OR as needed. You can fix the appearance of moles/marks and red eye using the last tab(named ‘region’) To correct red eyes/moles, simply draw a selection rectangle with the mouse over the affected area and the mark will vanish like magic. The same follows for red eye removal.

 

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Final results:

   

So that was an easy 3 step retouch tutorial, especially for those who are short with time and less proficient using Adobe Photoshop. Thanks for reading this tutorial :)

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Portrait Professional Tutorial - Photo Retouching

Portrait professional is a very powerful software when it comes to retouching photos or extreme photo makeovers. By using this incredible piece of software, one can modify the jaw shape, head, nose or even fake a soft smile. Yeah..that’s too good to be true !

Adding glow to face, removing marks and blemishes, improving the hair texture, colour and much more… things are possible by using Portrait Professional.

 

It’s just a matter of couple of minutes and this photo retouching suite can greet you with a dynamically enhanced photo. Go ahead and try it !

For ultimate photo retouching experience I would suggest you to go for the full version of portrait professional !

Alright…now get started. In this tutorial I have used a photo of actress Angelina(that’s without any makeover) and by using portrait professional I will be dramatically enhancing this photo ! Keep on reading to discover how…

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How to retouch photos in portrait professional

Step 1 : Open your photo in the software and on the right panel select your gender. After this do as directed by the software (you will need to single click on various facial spots like eye corners, tip of the nose, lips and then give appropriate shape to the blue lines in accordance to your face portrait) Refer the screen shots below…

It's that simple…You just have to position the dots with the help of reference picture provided in the right panel of the software. After finishing hit the space bar.

Step 2: Now you will have to adjust the sliders located on the right side of the software to enhance your photo’s appearance. You can even improve critical facial features like small nose, too much dilated eyes and can even control the extent of smiling expression.

 
then there are improving sliders for skin controls where you can dramatically improve skin texture, wrinkles and even spots. Depending upon your image adjust the values of the sliders until you are satisfied.

Step 3: Now scroll down to eyes retouch and adjust the sliders to improve the appearance of eyes and then move to hair tiding mode. Adjust the value of the sliders in accordance to what your picture requires. Don't do that excessively and as may lead to over editing. To be on a safer side, use the value of the sliders that I am using in my picture. 

 

Now save your picture and compare the initial and final picture.

 
 

That’s the ease of use of portrait professional. I hope that you enjoyed this photo retouching tutorial.

 

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Red eye correction in flash photography

Occurrence of red eye in digital photographs exasperates photographers of all levels. Although there are some really good online tools and softwares to remove red eye from digital photographs, but the art of preventing the occurrence of red eye while using flash is something that separates good photographers from average photographers. In this post I will be referring both the methods of reducing the red eye, i.e. pre-photography and post-photography.

What causes red eye in digital photographs?

Well, red eye is a problem that occurs while using flash in low light conditions. Here is a detailed explanation how and why it happens…

Suppose you are capturing the photo of a person sitting in a dark room where the light is not enough. So you are likely to use the flash on the camera. In dark, the pupil of the eye is dilated so that more light can enter the eyes for better and clear vision. That's a natural effect. Now when you are using the flash, the light from the flash is reflected back to the camera lens by the dilated pupil of the person. This causes the red eye in the digital photograph.
Now suppose the same person is sitting in a bright room with enough lights. In such a condition, the pupil of the eye would contract to avoid glare…again for better vision. Now if the photographer would use the flash then it is less likely that the red eye would occur. Now that you have a better understanding of what actually causes the red eye, lets head on to the methods to avoid them…

There are two methods of avoiding or removing red eye…
1. Pre-photography methods
As the name suggests here we focus on red eye prevention before capturing the photo. As explained under the causes of red eye, our first preference will be to shoot under appropriate light conditions. If somehow, you need to capture under dark conditions, then our second preference will be to turn off the flash and capture under a high ISO setting under the manual mode. 

2. Post-photography methods

These methods include the removal of red eye after capturing the photograph. Some cameras these days come with an advanced feature of red eye correction. One can easily remove the red eyes by exploring this unique feature under the photo retouch option of the camera. Secondly, you can use softwares like Google Picasa, PhotoScape and Adobe Photoshop for red eye correction. Google Picasa is one of the easiest software that comes with a one click red eye correction tool. Here's how you can perform a quick red eye removal in Google Picasa…

Red eye correction by using softwares

Red Eye Correction in Google Picasa

1. Open your image in Picasa and click on red eye under basic fixes tab.

 

2. Google Picasa automatically detects the red eyes and performs a quick auto correction.

 

 

Red Eye Correction in PhotoScape

1. Open your photo in PhotoScape under the editor section and tools –> red eye correction

2. Drag a small box around around each eye to remove the red eye as the software says..it’s that simple !!

 

Red Eye correction in Adobe Photoshop CS4

Open your photo in Photoshop and on the left toolbar select red eye tool under the bandage shaped tool (healing tool). Then single click on each red eye to remove it instantly.

 

Red Eye correction in Adobe Lightroom 3.4

To fix red eyes using adobe Lightroom, open up your photo in Lightroom and then navigate from library to develop located on the top right side. Lightroom is equipped with a powerful and easy to use red eye correction option located on the right side panel of the toolbar.

After clicking on the red eye, drag from the center of the red eye. It will be fixed instantly. To save your photo, navigate back to the library and export it to any desired location on your computer.

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Photo Retouch in Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is an easy to use software meant for managing, viewing and editing digital photographs. It’s a boon for photographers so that they can spend more time behind lens and less time to retouch photographs. Unlike Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom has a very easy to use graphical user interface.

Here is a short tutorial on how to do a professional retouch using this incredible software – Adobe Lightroom.

STEP 1: Import your photograph into Lightroom. Navigate to Library and then Import.

STEP 2: On upper right side click develop tab. Then click on adjustment brush. In effects tab choose soften skin.

 

 

STEP 3: Click on the face and start moving the circular pointer. Rub it on whole face. you can enlarge the picture by selecting the ratio on upper left side.

STEP 4:

Check which part of face is untouched by resting your pointer on this circular dot. And retouch rest of the face with the same tool.

STEP 5: You are done. It is that very easy. The difference between the original photo and the retouched photo is quite perceptible.

To save the new retouched photo press Library tab and export it to a location.

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