Today we are going to have a look at a set of Photoshop plug-ins made by retouch4me from Estonia. These are designed to work using neural networks and currently include 12 different plugins.
We will be testing 7 of those that are more relevant to some of the portrait work that we do from time to time in the studio.
Before we start, a word about installing the plug-ins. For multiple plug-ins, this will take time and you will have to activate them one by one. We suggested to the company to improve the Retouch4me Photoshop Panel so it will only show the plugins that you own and you will be able to activate all of them in one go. We also suggested having more control of each plugin from the panel itself since at the moment it is extremely basic.
There is a way to get a little more control if you go to filter>retouch4me and choose the specific plugin but it’s kind of clunky and pretty slow.
So, without further ado let’s take a closer look at some images and how each plugin works in different situations.
Tests
In the video above we processed and analyzed 3 different images using the 7 different retouch4me plugins at our disposal (heal, mattifier, dodge and burn, skin tone, portrait volumes, clean backdrop, and fabric). You can check out our analysis in the video and the before and after images below:
Image 1
Before
After
Image 2
Before
After
* We were asked not to share image number 3.
Some specific examples
- Skin Tone – The skin tone plug-in is very subtle but we have found in our tests that especially when there is redness in the face it can be a real-life saver and it gets rid of most if not all of it in a way that doesn’t seem to damage the image in any visible way.
We did suggest to the retouch4me team to add a secondary plug-in to fix other color-related issues affecting faces such as warmer or cooler light hitting the face from one side (for those using RGB lighting this could also be interesting).
Skin tone example – no plugin
Skin tone example – plugin applied
- Clean Backdrop – We have tested this plug-in quite extensively both on actual portraits that we shot in our studio but to really see the effect we simply shot the bottom half of (our very dirty wrinkly) yellow paper backdrop. The results are interesting. You can see that the plug-in has a visible effect but it is not perfect. We tried applying it again and it did improve the result although a third time seems to have diminishing returns. We suggest that retouch4me will significantly improve the intensity of this plugin and also add options to remove paper tears, and uneven colors and maybe on a secondary plug-in add a feature to fix uneven lighting on the backdrop as well as bending.
Backdrop example – no plugins applied
Clean backdrop applied (3x times)
- Fabric – We also did a deep dive into the fabric plug-in. Much like the backdrop, we feel that this plug-in can be super beneficial but as it is right now it is too weak and, in many cases, where a lot of wrinkles removal is needed it will simply not be enough. If you apply it more than once it might remove a tiny bit more but not as much as the clean backdrop plug-in.
Fabric plugin applied – no plugin applied
Fabric plugin applied (2x)
Just for fun we also tried using the plug-ins on a product image and we were not exactly surprised to see that almost nothing happened, so these are indeed designed specifically to work with portraits. With that said we would love it if the company would decide to develop a number of plug-ins specifically for product retouching such as smart dust and scratches removal and some advanced dodging and burning tools.
Individual plug-ins
- Heal – This might be the number one plug-in in our list in terms of effectiveness. It would be nice if we could make it a little stronger but even as it is this one is going to save you a lot of time and it is much more natural than the skin-smoothing neural filter in Photoshop at the moment.
- Mattifier – On images with more or less proper lighting this will have a subtle effect but it is certainly noticeable and can save quite a bit of time in editing.
- Dodge and Burn – In a way this might be closer to what the skin smoothing neural filter in Photoshop does but in a much more realistic way.
- Skin Tone – This plug-in is much more subtle and on some images it might do very little, if anything at all, but especially when editing people with redness in their faces you are going to see a huge impact (just make sure you are working with a good quality calibrated monitor).
- Portrait Volumes – Depending on the image of the person that you are editing this might be the most “controversial” plug-in that we have tested from retouch4me. It can be quite overwhelming on some faces and from our perspective, this plug-in is probably a lot more relevant for model facial retouching than anything else and even then it should be toned down quite often.
- Clean Backdrop – This tool has incredible potential and can be a big-time saver although with the ability of AI to remove and replace backgrounds in Photoshop and in other software, it is facing stiff competition.
As we have seen in our examples, at the moment the tool is not perfect and not as strong as we would like it to be. We would also want to see improvements in the form of secondary tools for a more even background color and lighting through the entire frame which can be very useful. - Fabric – Just like the clean backdrop, this plug-in has a lot of potential but honestly, at the moment we find it to be too weak on most images, failing to recognize a lot of larger wrinkles. We hope that retouch4me will be able to update this plug-in in the future as it has the potential to be extremely useful and a big-time saver.
General Pros and cons
So here are the main pros and cons of the retouch4me plugins that we tested as we see them:
Pros
- Fairly quick (1 min for 7 plugins)
- Very good, realistic results (with most of the plug-ins)
- One-click operation
- Easy to modify the results (using masks)
Cons
- Initial installation/activation of multiple plugins could be easier
- The panel is super basic (no way to control the amount or to permanently remove plugins you don’t own).
- Some plugins need improvements (especially Clean Backdrop and fabric).
- No simple built-in one-click way to apply these to multiple images (possible via a user-generated action).
- Expensive
Who is this for?
The one question that we hear people asking about these plugins is how much they cost and the simple answer is that they are not cheap. Pricing is currently between $130 and $150 dollars per plugin and the plugins that we are using for this video sell for close to $1000, that is a lot of money.
However, the right way to look at these plugins in our opinion is not through the lens of how much they cost but how much time and hence money they are going to save you. If you are a professional Photographer or retoucher who makes a living out of editing portraits on a daily basis these plug-ins might save you many hours of work.
Depending on how much you are charging per hour of editing and how many edits you are actually making per day, you might be able to cover the cost of these plugins very quickly.
The bottom line is simple. These are professional-level tools meant for people for whom time is money and who are willing to spend some to save a lot more later.
Talking about savings, just as we were wrapping up this review retouch4me approached us with a limited-time offer for our viewers for a special black Friday week discount of 40% (valid from the 23’rd until the 28’th of November 2023) so if you have been planning on purchasing one or more of the retouch4me plugins – this is the time.
Pricing and Black Friday sale
The official pricing of the retouch4me plugins is between $124-$149 per plugin. For black Friday 2023, the company is offering a special 40% discount for LensVid viewers as long as you use the following (affiliated) link.
You can check out more LensVid exclusive articles and reviews on the following link.
Iddo Genuth 
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