This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Effects and Presets
Perfect Portrait ships with a good selection of effects you can use with your images. When you launch the application, Perfect Portrait applies basic adjustments to your image, and from there you can play with the effects to see if another works better. If you want to set the initial settings for the adjustments that will be applied upon launching Perfect Portrait, go to Edit > Settings. Here you can select the intensity of the default adjustments (Natural or Strong), apply adjustments only to the skin (Skin Only), or select your own preset from the My Settings option at the very bottom (FIGURE 4.50). This is a great way to customize the intensity and application of the default settings to ensure that your portraits come out perfectly every time. After you make changes in the Settings window, the effects will be applied to all future images launched in Perfect Portrait.
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Figure 4.50. You can set the default Perfect Portrait adjustments in the Settings dialog box.
To apply an effect, select the face you want to work on by clicking it with the Face Select tool, click the folder drop-down, and then click an effect in the Effects tab to apply it (FIGURE 4.51). If you want to apply different effects to more than one person in your image, such as with a group photo, use the arrows in the Tool Options bar to select the individual Face Boxes and then apply the appropriate effect. Both effects and presets will override any changes you have made in the adjustment panes, so apply these before making additional refinements.
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Figure 4.51. Perfect Portrait offers several effects for use with your portraits.
Another great thing you can do in Perfect Portrait is save your own presets and then apply them to future images. To do this, make sure that a Face Box is selected and then choose Preset > Save Preset. These presets will then appear in the Presets tab on the left side of the window. Custom presets are especially useful when you have a large number of images to edit from the same person or group of people, such as from a senior portrait or engagement shoot. You can save the settings made in the adjustment panes (Skin Retouching, Color Correction, and Mouth & Eyes) and use them for your group of images. As with some of the other products in the suite, you can favorite any effect or preset and save it to the Favorites tab by clicking on the flag icon to the right of its thumbnail.
You also have the ability to batch process images with Perfect Portrait; please turn to Chapter 1, “Getting Started,” for a detailed explanation on how to do that using Lightroom and Photoshop.
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