Touch up portraits in seconds with Skylum Aperty software for pro photographers

Skylum's Aperty is specialized software for processing portraits, which is designed to automatically banish blemishes and smooth out skin, so that portrait photographers can get on with the with the process of photographing their subjects, rather than spending hours manually editing images at the computer.

The software, which went by the codename 'Project Barcelona' during its development phase, combines advanced AI and state-of-the-art features to produce natural-looking results and is targeted at professional studio photographers.

Key features include: Skin Smoothing to smooth skin texture while preserving natural tones and details; Blemish Removal to remove imperfections while preserving skin texture and permanent details, with the option to remove or restore freckles; Face/Body Skin Color Correction , enabling quick adjustments of red and green skin tones with a single slider to effectively remove redness on the model’s face and green tones caused by improper lighting or shadows; Studio Light , a dynamic tool for setting up artificial light sources and applying light textures; Presets/LUTs allow editing and color-grading of images in just a few clicks; Masking to create AI masks for people or backgrounds, with the ability to customize masks with brushes, gradients, or luminosity; and Makeup to add effects like blush, contour, and highlights in post-production.

Aperty is powered by several innovative key features especially developed by Skylum, which include the following:

Face Mesh processes up to 4,000 dots per face, ensuring that every edit is precise and accurately accounts for the depth and dimensions of the image (Skylum claims this is more than 20 times the dot count compared to other photo editors on the market).

Face and Body Segmentation detects up to 30 classes of face and body parts, allowing for highly detailed retouching and reshaping adjustments.

Synthetic Data Set Generation means that Aperty’s AI models have been trained using synthetic data, ensuring that creators' original work remains secure and addressing some common concerns among photographers around privacy and intellectual property.

Batch processing capabilities enable photographers to perfect one image according to their unique style, and then easily apply the edits to the rest of the photoshoot series.

The below video, from portrait pro Lee Zavitz, shows the software in action…

The software has been designed in collaboration with renowned portrait photographer Julia Trotti, and is intended to specifically meets the needs of semi-pro and professional photographers by offering advanced editing features that streamline the workflow and deliver stunning, natural-looking results with ease.

“Aperty is the portrait editing software I’ve always dreamt of creating to help save time retouching while maintaining professional results,” said Julia.

“We paid close attention to the challenges faced by professional photographers to deliver exactly what they need. With Aperty, what used to take hours – retouching each photo individually – can now be done in a fraction of the time,” added Skylum CEO Ivan Kutanin. “We understand that a photographer’s time is precious, especially for professionals who run their own businesses, which is why we believe retouching should be fast, straightforward and deliver high-quality results every time.”

Availability & pricing

Aperty is released on November 7, 2024, but pre-orders qualify for a two-years-for-the-price-of-one deal, at the early-bird price of $149/£169/AU$249. After the launch, it will cost $29.90 for a one-month subscription or $299 for a one-year subscription. All plans include updates to the latest version, 24/7 technical support, and activation on up to two devices.

Read more: the best photo-editing software