A portrait suitable for the cover of a magazine in a few minutes? It’s not impossible if you have some familiarity with Photoshop. The good news is that it can also be achieved with zero knowledge about Photoshop. You just need an adequate software such as Perfect365 makeover app for Android, Windows Phone and iOS.
Our review tests the Android version, for which you need to download a 25 MB installation file from Google Play. For free! Each and every bit of the software is free and it doesn’t even harass you with annoying ad banners. However, the finished pic cannot be saved in a size bigger than 1 megapixel. If you do want to re-touch a bigger photo, you’ll need to download the full version for cca. $3, which enables you to save files up to 16 megapixels. The full version can be purchased from the home page as well. Here you can upload a photo from the gallery of your cell phone (Photo Gallery), open a favorite pic saved earlier or a sample picture for practice, and by opening the camera of your device you can take a new pic immediately.
Perfect365 runs a quick search in the photo opened and detects the key facial points that are needed for the makeover. These are the eyes and eyebrows, the nose, the shape of the lips and of course, the edges of the face. If you are okay with the automatic facial map, you can move on to re-touch section, if not, the detected points can be adjusted separately to the desired place.
Facial makeover is similarly easy. No expertise in the topic is required and the user interface is quite uncomplicated. There are some default saving options / samples at the bottom of the screen (the app supports standing images only), which provide mainly make-up styles. One tap and there’s an instant extreme Halloween makeup on your face for example, or a more restrained and natural makeup style if that’s your preference.
The more radical editing menu comes forward with the Edit button. Key points and Hot styles here have already been mentioned. The former re-organizes the reference points while the latter opens the default samples again.
The rest of the menu goes like this:
Skin: removal of skin blemishes, adding make-up
– Blemishes: automatic removal of spots, pale freckles
– Circles: automatic removal of under-eye circles
– Brighten Skin: skin brightening (speaks for itself)
– Soften Skin: smoothing uneven areas and creases
– Blush: adding blush
– Foundation: adding foundation, powder
Face: physical changes in facial shape
– Slim Face: a slimmer face
– Lift Cheeks: more emphasized cheek bones
– Enhance Nose: narrower nose bridge
Eyes: conveying the shape of the eye area
– Liners: contouring the upper and bottom eyelines
– Color: changing the color of the eyes
– Lashes: thicker lashes
– Shadow: eyeshadow make-up
– Brighten: brightening the eyes
– Enlarge: enlarging the eyes
– Bow: thickening or thinning eyebrows
Mouth: retouching the lips area
– Deepen Smile: a bigger smile
– Whiten Teeth: whitening teeth (speaks for itself)
– Lipstick: color and amount
Hair: new hairdo / wig
In case of most settings, the amount can be adjusted on one slider. In some cases, the color can also be defined (eyes or lipstick).
A peculiar – though not indispensible – element in Perfect365 is hairdo change. Basically it creates a virtual wig in the photo and it is going to be life-like in frontal portraits only.
The available wigs are unfortunately all women’s hair styles, but to my utmost surprise, not only can you re-place and re-size them but their parts can be lengthened, shaped, thickened separately, at the move of your finger. This makes it possible to adjust the strands to the face quite nicely.
A nice app it is, worth a shot. I myself would have liked a bit more settings. To give an example, the removal of small skin blemishes is not always effective enough. In some cases a brush tool would be a great help, which could be used for retouching certain problematic areas separately (smoothing out the skin for instance). But apart from that, it proved excellent in ID-like portraits, such as in our sample pics.
