App Of The Week: Facetune Brings Photoshop To The Masses

App Name: FaceTune Available For: iOS and Android  Price: $3.99 Developer: Lightricks Ltd.

The Promise: Facetune is a fun portrait and selfie photo editor!

The “selfie” phenomenon has changed the world of photography as we know it. Even the Oxford English dictionary declared “Selfie” as the word of the year in 2013. And as smartphone cameras become sophisticated and powerful, our selfie taking and editing capabilities have reached new heights.

Until now, photo retouching was left for the pros and skilled Photoshop mavens. Now, with the Israeli app Facetune, you can get portrait retouches in a matter of seconds. We took the app for a test drive, and these were the results.

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Our Experience

When you launch the app, you get an option to test out the app’s editing features on a demo photo. A picture of a young woman will pop up, showing off her natural skin and teeth (and all the “imperfections” that go with that). A tutorial shows you how to use the app’s features to eliminate wrinkles and freckles, whiten teeth and even alter head shape. Once you learn all of the features, the app gives you the option of photographing yourself, or using an existing photo to retouch.

I took a selfie of moi and got to work. The results, as you can see, were quite interesting; the app smoothed out my skin texture, wrinkles and visible skin “issues”. While I thought the new “Facetuned” me wasn’t half-bad, my colleagues at NoCamels seem to think the result looks unnatural, almost cartoon-like. I took another photo of our editor, and I got the same feedback.

Me, before the retouch

And now after… What do you think?

The retouching tools are limited, and give images a slightly artificial look. But you can’t argue with the way this app makes retouching your photos simpler than ever before, turning an everyday selfie into a quality portrait.

The Verdict

You can download Facetune for iOS and Android.