A New Portrait Project

And Exploring Skylum Aperty I’ve started work on a portrait project which is, let’s just say not insignificant, in its scope… because if I think about it too much, I realise it’s quite the crazy undertaking! So, while I was planning this out, I had to think about how my workflow might work. How do […] The post A New Portrait Project appeared first on Stuck in Customs.

Apr 27, 2025 - 20:01

And Exploring Skylum Aperty

I’ve started work on a portrait project which is, let’s just say not insignificant, in its scope… because if I think about it too much, I realise it’s quite the crazy undertaking! So, while I was planning this out, I had to think about how my workflow might work. How do I make things as easy on myself as possible and keep the creativity as the priority, keeping the “how” out of the way as much as I can. I played with a few tools for a while and have now settled on Aperty. Before I get into that here’s a quick look at it:

That image in the interface, pretty great end result from minimal time. It was clear to me from early on in the testing that my normal tools, like Lightroom and Luminar, which I use A LOT, offer great processing but Aperty and its focus on portraits, offers a slicker workflow and quicker almost one click solutions.

Above you’ll see exactly what I mean. On the left, a before, right is the after. 2 button clicks to apply some sympathetic tweaks to the image. Areas to pay particular attention to are the bridge of the nose, forehead and right of the eye. In some cases, the wrinkles disappear, in others the harshness (which was partially due to the environment) is reduced.

Now, don’t get me wrong… if transforming your models into smooth skinned alienlike creatures is your style, that’s possible too… but for more terrestrial based portraits, the tweaks applied by Aperty in just a few clicks feel appropriate, never overdone. Above, that’s the blemish and skin smoothing sliders at work.

This being Skylum there are of course some fun additions to the normal options available too. You can for example have the software add some eyeliner to your model, or tweak their iris color as just two examples but that’s something for another day.

For now, what I see from Aperty is a great tool for anyone working on people pictures. The tools flow in a really nice, logical way for a processing work and a lot of the clutter you’d find in more general processing applications doesn’t feature here. Yet you can still do great environmental portraits too, which is what I think I’ll leave you with today… oh, and one more thing. You can grab Aperty for a 50% discount here, plus a bonus month on the subscription and a bunch of extras. Have fun!

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