Portrait+ - a great app!

I've been a portrait photographer for 30 years, film to digital. Photographic software like Portrait+ from Arcsoft is what keeps me from returning to film. It is remarkably good at improving faces quickly. What is particularly pleasing is the ability to quickly modify the amount of effect you apply. The default adjustments are fine as is but as a professional, I appreciate being given extra control. I found it easy to understand and adjust, with the results shown in realtime which is so helpful. I can highly recommend Portrait + which is now one of my go to plug-ins!

I use adjustments very gently. I opened my raw file and saved it as a tif, first. Then I quickly created a preset in Portrait+ which got rid of under eye circles and blemishes, made our smiles a bit more generous, widened/brightened eyes and slimmed my wifes face, and named it my family . I also clicked on my youngest sons face to lock it - this meant he wasnt adjusted like the rest of us, as I didnt feel he needed it. You can see theres still a bit of work to do but it really is minimal, just a bit more of the healing brush on my eldest sons face. I started from square one without reading any instructions - a quirk of mine - and found Portrait+ immediately easy to understand and use.

After Portrait+ did its work, I layered a black and white version at about 30% opacity, then played with the framing and grain. I estimate Portrait+ saved me a good 45 minutes of retouching time. My particular take on portraits is gentle and sparing, Im not a fan of the airbrushed look but if your tastes run differently, Portrait+ can provide almost any level of adjustment.

I've included screen shots and the finished image.