Retouch4me is a family of artificial intelligence-powered plug-ins for

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

retouching, compatible with

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc., Adobe for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. It is the most used tool for professional digital ...

;

Adobe Lightroom Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, often shortened to Lightroom, is an Image organizer, image organization and image editing, editing application developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe and licensed as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, Creative Cloud suite. It i ...

, and

Capture One Capture One is a photography software suite. It includes custom support for Raw image format, RAW files from over 650 cameras and tethering support (remote camera control via USB, network cable or Wifi) for over 200 cameras. Originally produced ...

(as external editors).

Development

Retouch4me plug-ins were developed by Oleg Sharonov, the author of 3D LUT Creator (a tool for professional

color grading Color grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of altering the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast (vision), ...

). The plug-ins resulted from eight years of photo retouching experience and two years of studying

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

. The underlying

neural networks A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either Cell (biology), biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a netwo ...

were trained using professionally retouched photos, including the ones submitted by the community.

Plug-ins

Plug-ins address specific time-consuming common retouching tasks: healing skin blemishes, background cleanup, cleaning up wrinkles and tears in fabric, enhancing eyes, whitening teeth, smoothing out skin tone, adding depth and dimension to portraits, and general

dodging and burning Dodging and burning are techniques used during the printing process to manipulate the exposure of select areas on a photographic print, deviating from the rest of the image's exposure. In a darkroom print from a film negative, ''dodging'' decrea ...

. The neural networks identify body and face, clothes and backgrounds, find issues, and correct them. The software is available as a stand-alone app for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and can be launched through

, and

. A

DaVinci Resolve DaVinci Resolve is a proprietary color grading, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production video editing application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, developed by Australian company Blackmagic Design. It was originally deve ...

Heal OFX video plug-in, announced in July 2022, applies healing in video. Plug-ins are sold separately with lifetime licenses. Plug-ins are applied individually and can be automated with custom actions in Photoshop. The user can adjust the applied effect, specify the area it should be applied to, and preview the result. The calculations are performed on the workstation and don't require an active internet connection. The operations themselves take a few seconds. * ''Dodge&Burn'' uses

techniques to smooth skin texture and fix trouble areas like

nasolabial fold The nasolabial folds, commonly known as "smile lines" or "laugh lines", are facial features. They are the two skin folds that run from each side of the nose to the corners of the mouth. They are defined by facial structures that support the bucca ...

periorbital dark circles Periorbital dark circles (including dark circles of the lower eyelid) are dark blemishes around the eyes. There are many causes of this symptom, including heredity and bruising. Causes Anatomical factors Bony structure and prominence of the orb ...

, skin bumps,

vein Veins () are blood vessels in the circulatory system of humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are those of the pulmonary and feta ...

s, unflattering shadows, and highlights, and such. * ''Portrait Volumes'' adds depth and dimension to portraits by dodging and burning certrain areas of the image to emphasize the eyes, nose, and lips and slightly adjusting contrast, exposure, and colors. * ''Eye Vessels'' (bundled with ''Eye Brilliance'') removes unsightly blood vessels to make the eyes appear more white. * ''Eye Brilliance'' (bundled with ''Eye Vessels'') automatically detects eyes and retouches them using the dodging and burning technique. * ''Heal'' fixes minor skin imperfections, such as

acne Acne ( ), also known as ''acne vulgaris'', is a long-term Cutaneous condition, skin condition that occurs when Keratinocyte, dead skin cells and Sebum, oil from the skin clog hair follicles. Typical features of the condition include comedo, ...

and post-acne marks, pimples, enlarged pores, and so on. It doesn't rely on smoothing and therefore preserves skin texture. * ''Clean Backdrop'' detects and removes dirt, folds, holes, sensor dust, and other details from evenly-colored studio backgrounds. * ''Skin Tone'' evens out the general hue of the skin and removes redness. * ''White Teeth'' identifies teeth and adds a natural-looking whitening. * ''Fabric'' smoothes out creases and wrinkles on fabric and evens the color tones without removing unsightly folds or rolls of clothing. * ''Skin Mask'' enables one-click skin selection, which comes in handy for overall skin adjustments. In July 2022, Retouch4me announced the ''Heal OFX Video Plugin'', a video retouching plug-in for

. Oleg Sharonov explained that the plug-in was developed to simplify the workflow for the users who employed the photographic ''Heal'' plug-in to retouch videos frame-by-frame.

Awards

In April 2024, RetouchMe obtained the Technical Image Press Association award for the best AI portrait editing software.

Reviews

Retouch4me received positive reviews in professional media for nondestruсtive approach and preservation of skin tone, texture, and level of details. Patrick Hill from Fstoppers considered that the plug-ins raised the bar of AI automation in high-end photography. Sean McCormac, the ''Photoshop User'' reviewer, pointed out that they take care of the most tedious parts of retouching work. DOCMA (

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

's popular print magazine on image editing with Photoshop and Lightroom) and

TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online technology publication owned by Future plc. It has editorial teams in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia that provide news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2008 and expanded t ...

included Retouch4me in their forecasts on the future of photography as a notable example of AI-powered technology. A photography news aggregator PetaPixel named it the best plugin for AI photo retouching in its 2022 rating.

References

{{Raster graphics editors Raster graphics editors Photo software