York University, where the face and facial feature finding technology was developed by a York research group.Cambridge University, home of the chief scientist, with whom Anthropics still has close research links.
Over the past few years, in conjunction with researchers at several British universities, it has been developing Portrait Professional as a new form of photographic retouching software. Initially it was awarded three years of government funding to "explore the future of the media." You decide just where to draw the line, though, using simple sliders to adjust the corrections and saving those adjustments as a preset.Īnthropics Technology ( ) was launched in 1997 as the research division of the U.K.'s National Film and Television School, the rough equivalent of the American Film Institute. Anthropics Technology has indeed done just that with Protrait Professional, a very simple-to-use application that applies the tricks of the trade to any portrait.īut the program can go a bit beyond what photographers do, approaching the control of a portrait painter when it comes to the shape of the face. So it shouldn't surprise us that someone would sooner or later automate the flatter's art for portrait photographers. The artist's job has always been to "convey the subject's personality." In short, portraiture has always been about flattery. The real art is in lighting the subject appropriately. Photographic portraiture has by nature been forced to be less ambitious, confining itself to soft focus, narrow depth of field, whitening teeth and sharpening eyelashes with some airbrushing of blemishes. Much was left to suggestion, diplomatically avoiding the distractions of blemishes and scars. The highlight dabbed into their eyes was an old trick that couldn't be relied on in real life.
The broad brush that laid in the flesh tones of their faces didn't lend itself to pore-level detail.
When we stroll through one of those portrait galleries full of Thomas Eakins and James McNeill Whistler, we wink at the wealthy patrons they portrayed and mumble under our breath, "You never looked so good." The Imaging Resource Digital Photography Newsletter
THE ART OF FLATTERY Portrait Professional - Automated Makeovers By MIKE PASINI