Today's GOTD, PT Portait, isn't necessarily bad, but anyone interested in this sort of thing probably owes it to themselves to research Frequency Separation.
Frequency Separation isn't a single method, & it's not an app or plug-in... What it involves is separating the texture information or data from the color info/data, so each can be worked on independently, then put back together. If you have a blemish or a wrinkle or whatever without Frequency Separation you clone &/or paint image data on top of it to make it go away, & unless you spend a lot of time at it & have a bit of skill, the results look a bit plastic. Do the same thing separately to the color &/or texture & it usually doesn't -- cloning/painting a color isn't difficult, nor is matching texture, & done separately it works.
Please don't get caught up in the name: Frequency Separation -- you're just splitting the existing data into 2 parts & later recombining them. Methods vary depending on what you're using -- it's done differently in Photoshop than PaintShop Pro, & the GIMP has a few plug-ins & methods to choose from.
SO if you're into this stuff at all do yourself a favor & research it [as in Google], & look at the examples. PT Portrait isn't a fully hands-off, automated app so you'd have to do a little work anyway -- if you're going to do a bit of manual pixel-pushing work anyway, to use an ancient term, look into putting your efforts to best use. :)
