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Facetune Review

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Facetune Review

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100K+ Customers Moved

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Aditi Patel

Best Moving Companies Editor

Pros

  • Impressive Retouching Tools
  • User-Friendly Interface
  • Helpful Tutorials

Cons

  • Limited Screen Compatibility
  • Subscription/In-App Purchases

Overview

Facetune is an application that offers professional-grade photo editing tools on your mobile device. It is specifically designed for enhancing portraits and group photos, helping users to improve the visual quality of their subjects.

When first opening the app, users have the option to work with a demo photo. These demo images often feature portraits with various imperfections, such as blemishes, facial hair, or freckles, which can be corrected or minimized using the app’s tools. Using a demo photo is recommended for new users to get acquainted with the app’s features and functionalities without the pressure of editing their own photos.

Each time a tool is selected for the first time, the app provides a brief tutorial explaining its purpose and general usage. This step-by-step guidance is effective as it introduces tools as needed, rather than presenting a lengthy tutorial at the start that might be easily forgotten.

Furthermore, at the end of each tool’s guide, a video demonstration is available to show how the developers use the tool. These visual examples are especially useful, offering a clear and practical illustration of the tool in action, thereby enhancing the user’s learning experience.

Facetune is a robust mobile app designed to offer professional-quality photo editing tools, particularly for enhancing portraits and group photos. It provides users with a comprehensive suite of features to improve the overall appearance of their subjects, ensuring a polished final result.

Features

Comprehensive Toolset

Facetune includes ten primary tools to enhance photos: Crop, Whiten, Smooth, Details, Reshape, Patch, Tones, Red Eye, Defocus, Filters, and Frames. Each tool is designed for a specific task, and while they share common usage traits, they all have unique nuances that users need to learn for optimal results.

Detailed Tool Functions

Patch Tool: This tool helps cover up moles, pimples, or beauty marks. Users select the spot they want to conceal and then choose a portion of skin to copy and replace the unwanted mark. The tool supports zooming and navigating the photo with gestures, ensuring precise edits.

Reshape Tool: This tool allows users to bend and transform specific areas of a photo, such as making a nose look smaller or slimming a waistline. The “Move” button is used to navigate the photo without accidentally applying an effect.

Consistency in Navigation: Different tools have varied approaches to gestures, and while using the “Move” button is recommended to prevent accidental edits, a standardized navigation experience would enhance usability.

Non-Permanent Edits

Facetune allows users to undo any changes made to a photo, providing flexibility in the editing process. An always-present button in the lower-right corner lets users view the original photo for comparison at any time.

Sharing Options

After completing edits, users can share their photos across various social networks and services, including email, camera roll, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, and other supported apps. Facetune also offers the option to upload before-and-after versions of a photo, showcasing the applied editing skills.

Organized Workflow

Facetune presents a straightforward workflow for portrait corrections, guiding users from teeth whitening to skin smoothing, detail sharpening, and applying the Glow effect for added vitality. Effects are grouped into three main categories: Tools, Retouch, and Filters. Most effects involve finger-painting on the desired area, with the app efficiently detecting the edges of the face to prevent unwanted application to the background.

Innovative Features

Relight: One of Facetune’s standout features, Relight, can make it appear as though the light source in a portrait is coming from a different angle. This feature uses face recognition and AI to create a 3D model of the image, similar to certain CAD programs, and is useful for fixing photos shot in suboptimal lighting conditions.

Live Edits: Facetune 2 allows users to shoot photos with live edits, including extreme adjustments like face reshaping. This feature is both practical and entertaining, letting users apply and adjust filters and effects in real-time as they shoot.

Sharing and Social Integration

Facetune’s sharing options are straightforward and functional. Users can send their edited photos via iMessage, email, WhatsApp, or any app with an iOS Share Sheet. The app does not include its own social-sharing network but integrates well with existing ones.

Additional Features

There are many more tools in Facetune 2, providing a powerful image-retouching experience. While it may not be as comprehensive as some all-around photo editors like PicsArt or offer extensive social sharing like Instagram and Flickr, Facetune excels in portrait editing, which is a common use case for many iPhone users. Whether the app’s subscription or in-app purchase prices are worth it is up to individual users, but even without a purchase, Facetune offers several impressive free features.

Facetune is a versatile and powerful photo editing app that balances advanced features with user-friendly functionality, making it a popular choice for enhancing portraits and creating polished images.

Pricing

Facetune 2 is currently available exclusively on iPhones, while Android users have access to the original Facetune app, which is priced at $3.99 on the Apple App Store. Facetune 2 can be downloaded for free, but its advanced features require either in-app purchases or a subscription. At present, an annual subscription costs $9.99, though there is a possibility of future price increases, according to a Lightricks representative. While some users are hesitant about subscriptions, they are essential for software companies like Lightricks to maintain steady revenue for ongoing development and enhancements. Users can experiment with the app’s features on sample images at no cost, but this trial does not extend to personal photos. Despite the subscription cost, many users find it worthwhile due to the significant benefits it offers.

The original Facetune app is still available on the App Store for a one-time purchase priced at $5.99. While it remains a solid choice, it lacks some of the standout features found in Facetune 2, such as Relight and live face reshaping. Both versions may give potential users pause due to their associated costs, especially considering the extensive photo editing capabilities offered by free alternatives like Flickr, PicsArt, and even Instagram.

Given its robust functionality, Facetune is a substantial download, weighing in at 114MB, and requires iOS 9 or later. To evaluate its performance, the app was installed on an iPhone 6s.

Customer Services

Facetune offers a comprehensive array of customer support channels, encompassing an online contact form, email support, a robust Help Center, an informative blog, and multiple FAQ sections. Additionally, users can benefit from the ToolTip Center, which provides tutorials on effectively utilizing Facetune’s features. Currently, responses to queries submitted via the contact form and email typically require several hours. Introducing a live chat feature would enhance the support experience by providing customers with immediate, real-time assistance, addressing their needs promptly.

Competitive pricing and accurate quotes

Bottom Line

Facetune is an app designed to enhance photos, but it requires a degree of patience and practice. Users cannot expect to launch the app, select a photo, and immediately start perfecting blemishes and discolorations within minutes. Instead, it is recommended to spend time with demo photos, experimenting with each tool to become familiar with their functions before applying them to personal photos.

However, this does not mean the app is unsuitable for those with limited time or patience. It is possible to make small but impactful edits, such as whitening teeth, relatively quickly. More complex adjustments, like slimming down a subject’s neckline or correcting skin tone, will require more time and practice.

For users with an iPad, it is advised to opt for the iPad version of the app instead of the iPhone version. The larger screen of the iPad offers a significant advantage when editing photos, an experience that might be missed on the smaller iPhone screen.

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