An honest comparison of price, control, skin texture, and who each plugin is actually built for.
Portraiture is a fast, trusted skin-smoothing plugin - but it costs $250 and mainly smooths. RetouchLab Skin Pro is a brush: you paint exactly where you want to retouch and get frequency separation, dodge & burn, and tone evening in one tool, for €79 lifetime. If you retouch in Photoshop and want full control over real skin texture, RetouchLab wins on both control and price. If you need a Lightroom plugin or one-click batch smoothing, Portraiture still has a place.
| RETOUCHLAB SKIN PRO ✦ | IMAGENOMIC PORTRAITURE | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | €39 for 6 months or €79 lifetime CHEAPER | $249.95 one-time (Portraiture 4) |
| Approach | Brush - you paint exactly where MORE CONTROL | Automatic skin detection + smoothing |
| Techniques | Frequency separation + dodge & burn + tone evening MORE | Skin smoothing (with tone/warmth options) |
| Skin texture | Preserved via frequency separation - real pores BETTER | Detail setting helps, but can look soft/plastic if pushed |
| Control | Full - 7 sliders, targeted, real-time preview | Sliders + masks, applied to detected skin globally |
| Runs in | Adobe Photoshop | Photoshop and Lightroom PORTRAITURE |
| Speed | 20–60 seconds per photo, targeted | Very fast, automatic - good for batch |
| Best for | Photographers who want control, dodge & burn, and natural texture | High-volume batch smoothing across Photoshop + Lightroom |
Portraiture's core job is skin smoothing - it detects skin and softens it, fast. That's genuinely useful for high-volume work. But smoothing is only one part of skin retouching. It doesn't sculpt light and shadow, and pushed too hard it flattens the face into that recognisable "app-smoothed" look.
RetouchLab Skin Pro combines the three techniques real retouchers actually use: frequency separation (even out tone while keeping pores), dodge & burn (fix shadows, eye bags, and blotches by shaping light), and tone evening - all in one brush. You're not just softening skin; you're retouching it, the way you would by hand, in a fraction of the time.
Because it's brush-based, you decide exactly where and how much. Smooth the forehead, leave the freckles, sculpt under the eyes - the client's face still looks like the client, just on their best day.
Both are one-time purchases - the gap is the size of the price:
At roughly a third of Portraiture's price, RetouchLab does more than smooth - and if you already retouch in Photoshop, that's where it lives.
You retouch in Photoshop and want full control over real skin texture - not just smoothing. You want frequency separation, dodge & burn, and tone evening in one brush. You care about natural results that keep pores and character. And you want the most affordable option with lifetime access.
You need a plugin that also works in Lightroom, you mostly want fast automatic smoothing across large batches, and the $250 price isn't an issue. Portraiture is a mature, respected tool - it's just built around smoothing, not full brush retouching.
Get it for €39 (6 months), or go lifetime for €79 - one payment, all future updates included.
GET SKIN PRO — €39 →Available on Adobe Exchange · Instant download · Works in Photoshop 2022+
Comparing other tools? See RetouchLab vs Retouch4me, vs Evoto, and our full roundup of the best Photoshop skin retouching plugins.
Imagenomic Portraiture 4 is about $249.95. RetouchLab Skin Pro is a Photoshop skin-retouching plugin for €39 for 6 months or €79 lifetime, one-time - roughly a third of the price - and it adds dodge and burn plus tone evening, not just skin smoothing.
Portraiture automatically detects skin and smooths it with sliders and masks. RetouchLab is brush-based: you paint exactly where you want to retouch, combining frequency separation, dodge and burn, and tone evening in one brush, so you keep control and real skin texture instead of an overall smoothing effect.
Portraiture is a smoothing tool with a detail-preservation setting, but pushed too far it can look soft or plastic. RetouchLab works with frequency separation, which separates texture from tone, so pores and real skin detail stay intact while you even out the skin.
No - RetouchLab runs inside Adobe Photoshop only. Portraiture works in both Photoshop and Lightroom, so if you need a Lightroom plugin, Portraiture has the edge. If you retouch in Photoshop, RetouchLab gives you more control and costs far less.