This AI Chatbot's Preview Window Is the Best, and Everyone Should Give It a Try Quick LinksRetouching Photos Myself Using AI to Retouch My Photos Key Takeaways I experimented with manual retouching and AI tools to see what worked the best. Some AI tools were more subtle, but many didn't give me the results I was looking for. If you're going to use AI tools, it's a good idea to make the core retouches manually beforehand.
To see whether I could rely on AI to retouch my photos, I put three tools to the test. I also manually retouched my images using three different apps to see whether human or AI retouching works better.
Retouching Photos Myself
First, let's look at how I retouched my pictures manually. It's worth noting that all of these apps are available on mobile, but this is not the case for the AI tools.
1. My Smartphone's Editing App
The first place I started with retouching my images was via my iPhone's built-in editing app. The image I edited was taken on a winter morning, and it was also a very gray day. My main objective was to add some vibrancy to the buildings, as it looked much more colorful in real life than the picture suggests. This was the unedited version:
I also adjusted the shadows and added some contrast. I did try the auto edits, and while good, they weren't really what I was looking for. As a result, I avoided them. Other things I edited include the brilliance, black point, vibrance, and saturation. As you can see, the edited version is a big change from the original:
I also added a Vivid filter as a starting point. However, I don't think this is 100% necessary to get your ideal results. Learning about the different iPhone camera filters and when to use them will help you decide if it's a good idea to add them to your creations.
2. Canva
Canva is another easy-to-use app that I sometimes use for creating designs, though I also use it for editing photos. I used some of Canva's many free features to retouch my picture this time, but before I speak more about that, here was the original unedited version:
This was actually quite an easy edit, and I mainly wanted to add a bit more saturation to the picture. I also didn't want to go overboard, though; using auto-adjusting felt like Canva added too much and it looked more like a drawing.
I also tweaked the contrast and added a filter. While probably not a portfolio piece, I was quite happy with the final result here:
Unlike the first image, I didn't want to have a lot of texture. The water was quite smooth when I was there in person, and I also didn't want to add too much texture to the building that you see in this picture. I originally wanted to go for more of a nostalgic look, but couldn't really get that look in Canva.
If you want to enhance your images in Canva but would prefer to use AI, you can instead transform your images with Canva's Magic Edit tool.
Download: Canva for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)
3. Photoshop Express
Since I've edited street and architectural photos so far, I figured that it would also be worth adjusting a portrait and seeing what I could come up with compared to AI. One thing I like about Photoshop Express is that you can specifically choose a subject if you'd like to edit a portrait, meaning that the edits will only apply to this part of the picture.
Before I go into more detail, here was the original portrait:
When retouching in Photoshop Express, I didn't do a huge amount. My main objective was to change the brightness a bit and also add some contrast to the picture.
It was also important for me to bring out the autumn colors in the background, as while my phone did a good job, I felt like these could have been exemplified a bit more. To do this, I specifically chose the background; adding saturation to a person's skin tone doesn't always look good.
Here was the final edit:
As you can see, I also blurred the background slightly to put more attention on the main subject. If you'd like to see how Photoshop Express compares to other Adobe tools, consider checking out this test of multiple free Adobe apps.
Download: Photoshop Express for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)
Using AI to Retouch My Photos
After manually retouching, I then used AI to retouch my images and compare them. I used the same pictures for these tools, and you'll see the results in the same order as how everything is listed above.
1. ImgGen
ImgGen has several AI tools available online, but at the time of writing in August 2024, it doesn't have a mobile app. So, I took to my computer for this experiment. I edited the same image that I retouched manually in my smartphone's camera app with ImgGen -- the main difference being that I only used AI this time.
Here is the result:
The tool removed a lot of the texture, which is something that I have spoken about many times with AI retouchers and editors. On top of that, it didn't add any color -- this, combined with the fact that it's now smoother, made the picture more bland in my opinion.
If I was to use ImgGen's AI retoucher again, I would probably make the edits manually for colors, shadows, texture, and whatnot. Then, I'd upload the edited picture to get rid of excessive sharpness and the like. I suggest that you do the same.
2. iFoto
To run my next AI photo retouching test, I used the same image in Canva for iFoto. To do this, I used the app's image enhancer as this was the closest thing there was to AI retouching. It's quite simple to use in this respect; all you have to do is upload your image and then the app will scan and make changes. Here is the end result:
It didn't do a huge amount compared to the original version, which I was actually happy about; some AI tools go too over the top with their edits, in my opinion. If I was only trying to smoothen my picture, I would probably use this feature.
One thing worth noting, though, is that I had issues with iFoto recognizing my account -- so you might encounter similar problems.
3. Fotor
Fotor is one of our favorite affordable AI photo editing apps, so I figured that it was worth trying for this experiment. The Fotor app has an AI retoucher that you can only use for portraits, which is why I used it for the third image. Like the other AI tools on this list, you simply have to upload your picture and click a button. It can sometimes take a bit of time, so you might have to be patient.
Here is the final result:
I didn't notice a huge difference in the retouch, to be honest, but it was still good enough. I think that this would probably perform better if you used more of a close-up portrait, so this might be worth trying if you want to edit your portraits more effectively using Fotor.
AI retouching tools definitely have their strengths. But for the most part, I would suggest using them in addition to performing manual edits. I found that the best results would involve me editing the basics first and then adding my pictures to the AI for the final touches. It's also likely that these tools will get better over time as the technology they operate upon improves.
