One of the hottest issues in today’s world — and one we’ve written a book worth of words about — is that of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Is it ethical? Is it dangerous? Is it worth the resources spent on it? Does the world really need a hallucination machine? Despite not having achieved a consensus on all these questions, in the purest “your scientists didn’t stop to think if they should” fashion, major software companies keep on pushing new apps based on AI, and Skylum has never been an exception. And now, their latest software, Aperty, is here to shake things up.
The Phoblographer may receive affiliate compensation for products purchased using links in this blog post. All photographs in the article by Lara Santaella Carretero.
Aperty, their new proposal, is a portrait retouching software built around several AI tools in collaboration with Julia Trotti, a professional photographer and YouTuber based in Australia. Their premise is “portrait retouching should be both quick and accessible,” and their goal is to allow us photographers to spend more time behind the camera instead of the computer. This includes a whole slew of sliders and dropdowns to play with — skin smoothing, blemish removal, teeth whitening, and more. I’ve spent some time working with this software to see what it is capable of, what it cannot do, and what I think it shouldn’t do.
Table of Contents
Aperty: A Quick Overview
Skylum Aperty is a retouching software powered almost entirely by AI. As such, it’s quick, accessible, and easy to use for most people, from complete beginners to seasoned professionals on a deadline. It purports to offer natural-looking results quickly and work on devices without needing an internet connection.
Skylum assures us that it’s a perfectly ethical tool, as its AI models have been trained on synthetic material. In my opinion, it still needs some improvements to achieve full usefulness, but it’s a promising tool for retouchers who need help.
Pros
- Speeds up edits such as blemish removals, skin softening, or teeth whitening.
- Virtual lighting is based on AI, allowing for the use of realistic creative shadows like slates or grids.
- AI is fully local, assuring you of your privacy and your clients’.
Cons
- For the moment, adjustments such as teeth whitening or the ones in reshape are applied to everyone in the photo.
- AI is fully local, meaning that Reshape can be too obvious in some scenarios.
Gear used
Photos were taken with a Sony A7RIII and an 85mm Batis lens by Zeiss and edited on a 2019 MacBook Pro with an i5 processor. I own the laptop, and Skylum provided the software for review purposes.
Tools and innovation
Apart from the most basic tools — Clone, Dodge, and Burn, accessible on the upper left part — Aperty is primarily organized into several sections; Canvas, Essentials, Retouch, Reshape, and Creative. It also could benefit from a Project overview — their version of catalogs — to help you compare and cull the undesirables.
The Basics: Canvas and Essentials
In Canvas mode, you will be able to crop, adjust the ratio, and modify the optics of your picture. The only thing worth commenting on here is the lack of a rotation tool. While this shouldn’t be a problem in closeups, it can be a bit of an inconvenience in other types of shots; you shouldn’t need another app to straighten the horizon!
In Essentials mode, you can develop pictures to your liking, both from RAW and JPEG files. Both of these are pretty much standard fare, so they don’t merit an in-depth discussion. Now, let’s take a look into the reason Aperty exists — the AI-powered tools.
AI: Retouch, Reshape, And More
A disclaimer: I’m not a retoucher. I don’t do photoshoots for the fashion or advertising industry, and I firmly believe in the natural beauty captured by the camera. Unless there’s something like an acne that will not be there in a week — or something I’m explicitly asked to remove — I will not remove it. Having said that, let’s get into it!
Retouch mode is the place where the magic happens. I say magic because while the results may look amazing, you don’t have much control over them. Masking is only available for Essentials and Creative tools, so you cannot even choose which elements in the picture will get the treatment. In the following photograph, the software took care of every little imperfection it could find on its own just by adjusting the Blemishes slider.
With the sliders available in the sidebar — such as blemish removal, freckles, skin smoothing, face skin color correction, dark circles removal, face brightening, and shine removal — we can edit a picture in less than thirty seconds, discounting the time the computer needs to process. We can also change the eye color with a dropdown box and edit its iris flare, though the results are far from perfect. If the model isn’t looking straight at the camera, eyes wide open, it will either overlap with the eyelids or fail to recognize the eyes altogether.
In the following pictures, we can see how the app fails to recognize Lorenzo’s eyes while Bea’s eyes are incorrectly covered. Only Jess’s eyes have been altered correctly, thanks to their position. As an admittedly fringe case, the app fails to recognize that Angie’s eyes are behind a veil. So, while the color is much more noticeable, it also appears fake.
Jess
You can also whiten or brighten their teeth and apply some rudimentary cosmetic touch-ups to their eyelids, cheeks, nose, and lips. It won’t look anywhere as good as what a makeup artist can do, though. You’re better off letting the models do their own touch-ups.
Let’s skip to Creative mode, where some amazing effects await. In this section, we can find LUTs, vignettes, grain and other basic effects of the kind. They work correctly and without fuss, which is more than enough to describe them. The really cool part comes with the Studio Light settings — this one has made me smile hugely and with reason.
Aperty and its AI will generate a hidden 3D model to apply virtual lighting on your model — shadows and patterns included. You can move the source of light around, changing its colors, shadow patterns, and strength. As a quick and imperfect example of this, below are the before and after pictures of Jess. I applied a bluish light to her left and a white light with a patterned shadow to her right, as well as incrementing the light contrast.
The possibilities for this are endless and certainly less harmful to our models. It’s also better than shining a light on their eyes and asking them to keep them open. Anyway, I’ll remind you that nothing beats in-camera work, as a certain Californian artist (NSFW) reminded us.
For the end of this review, Reshape mode is where the dark magic occurs. It’s the same as the regular magic I mentioned earlier, only this time you will call in a handful of extra consequences. I’ll tell you about them at the end.
In this section, you will be able to modify not only the face but also the body of your model. You’ll be able to slim down their face — emphasis on the slim, as the slider can’t be moved left — change the shape of their nose, the position and thickness of their lips, or the arch of their eyebrows. And, of course, alter the thickness of their body.
Remember how I mentioned that Reshape could be too obvious in some scenarios? The image to the right above is one of them. Reshape is only an advanced liquify with AI detection built-in; this means that if, say, a brick wall is used as the background, it will warp it in a way not dissimilar to the ones appearing in memes. Look at how even the lamp post is warped!
The version of Aperty I’m reviewing is still in its beta version. But, I have to point out an important upcoming feature: a way to edit group photos with different Reshape or Retouch settings for every individual in them.
Now, for the consequences. I know that this program is principally built for busy professionals with a ton on their plate. Sometimes, we must swallow our pride and airbrush our models beyond recognition if we want them to appear on the cover of whatever magazine pays us for our work. As professionals, we know the multiple risks lying on that path.
But considering this app is also built with beginners in mind, I’d be disloyal to myself and my principles if I didn’t write this out. The use of this particular section of the app, with all its cutely automated sliders, can lead to dysmorphia and severe self-esteem issues. You, your friends, your models; they’re perfect as they are. Don’t do them and yourself a disservice by altering their factions.
Too long, Didn’t Read; Here’s the Conclusions
Aperty is a nifty app with very slight shortcomings and a good amount of potential. According to them, its AI is trained in synthetic models of its own, which speaks well for this software. It can also work offline without access to external servers, which makes it even better. There are still some things to polish — I insist a rotate tool will be incredibly helpful, as would an overview section — but overall, it’s a pretty decent piece of software that deserves every penny of your investment.
As I mentioned, I heavily dislike the ease with which you can alter someone’s face or body, but I think that’s understandable. As professional photographers, we should be careful of what we achieve with our work, lest we feed the monsters of dysmorphia and friends. Of course, I know apps like FaceApp and others that do virtually the same, but I don’t think we’ll ever see a picture worth printing on those.
You can find and buy Aperty on the Skylum website.