Portraiture Imagenomic Best
Here is the preset that wins for 90% of professional portraits:
| Setting | Recommended Value | Why? | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Preset | Normal (or Soft) | Avoid "High" or "Extreme" – those are for beauty magazines, not real people. | | Threshold (Fine) | 10-20 | Controls tiny pores. Keep low to retain texture. | | Threshold (Medium) | 30-50 | Controls blotchiness. Sweet spot for reducing redness. | | Threshold (Large) | 50-70 | Controls shadows/under-eyes. Use carefully to avoid flatness. | | Sharpness | 20-30 | Re-adds crispness after smoothing. | | Warmth | 0 (or +3 for sunset) | Corrects cyan/red skin casts. | portraiture imagenomic best
Version 4 includes a "Dynamic Lighting" control. This works like a cross between a curve adjustment and a soft glow. It lifts the shadows under the eyes and on the chin while taming highlights on the nose. It sounds small, but it reduces your editing time by 50%. Global adjustments first:
Where you launch Portraiture dramatically changes the outcome. Run Portraiture:
Pro Tip for Best Results: Run Portraiture on a Soft Light blending mode layer. Duplicate your background, apply Portraiture aggressively (high smoothing), then change that layer's blend mode to Soft Light or Overlay. You will get incredible contrast and micro-sharpening while simultaneously smoothing the skin. This is a hidden "HDR skin" trick.
Because Version 4 is optimized for modern GPUs, applying the effect to a 45-megapixel RAW file takes less than one second. It acts as a Smart Filter in Photoshop, allowing you to paint the effect back in (black mask/white brush) non-destructively.