What chicken pox?

Before I discovered the healing brush tool in Photoshop, I bought Portrait Professional, which is a retouching program known lately because they advertise before and after photos like these:



What I don't like about the program is that it actually contours the face. I don't know their algorithm, but they make eyes larger, and noses smaller, and lips fuller, and cheekbones higher, ETC. It's creepy. But, I am going to defend their use of a cute, little freckle-faced girl, because they probably didn't want to use an acne-pocked seventeen-year-old boy in their ad. It wouldn't make anyone feel good.

I think you are supposed to see the image, and instead of being offended by it, apply it to your own photos. "Oh, that could do wonders for that seventeen-year-old boy I photographed last week." Or something like that.

Here's a photo of me before and after, using the Portrait Professional default settings. Notice my face shape is slightly different. I'm not offended. I know my face is shaped like a pumpkin.



So, I put them to the test. I wanted to see what they could do with the pox-plagued face of my little baby. You've seen the before:



Here's the after:


Portrait Professional is very easy and very fast. I simply uploaded her picture and after about five mouse clicks, this is what they came up with. I disabled the face contouring. Not bad, but not perfect.

So, I spent about a minute in Photoshop with the healing brush tool and this is the final result.



Not bad retouching in less than two minutes. But, I absolutely do not recommend you buy Portrait Professional. It's not worth the money, and it's weird, and I wish I'd never bought it.