Truth, Lies and Portrait Touch-up

How research into the way people see themselves in photographs, coupled with knowledge-based software can be used by portrait photographers to make clients happy and boost sales.

Truth, Lies and Portrait Touch-up 1 Original image

Truth, Lies and Portrait Touch-up 2 After enhancement

Truth, Lies and Portrait Touch-up 3

The image on the right was shown to the client. She did not notice it was touched up. She simply stated ‘it was a great shot of her, taken by a very skilled photographer…'

You are reading a professional photography magazine, so it’s a safe assumption that you know how to take good photographs. What you are perhaps less well informed about is scientific research into how people see themselves in photographs.

Why is this important? Because understanding how human beings respond to images of themselves is helpful both in knowing what sort of enhancements people want in their portraits, and equally importantly, how to use this knowledge to increase your sales and make your customers happier.

Before I start I need to declare an interest. I am the CEO of Anthropics Technology. We have been involved in research in computer human representation for many years. Initially as the research division of the UK National Film and Television School, and more recently as a commercial company producing Portrait Professional, a software package specifically 'trained' to beautify faces in portraits.

However this article is not about Portrait Professional, but about what science has learned about how people see photographs of themselves, and how new generation ‘ knowledge-based' software can help photographers who are not specialist touch up artists get results fast, and is therefore relevant to any portrait or wedding photographer interested in increasing his or her business.

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