There is plenty of photo-editing software around, most of which seeming to compete by adding endless lists of extra features; artistic paint tools, slideshows, and myriad graphical and special effects features.

Reallusion Facefilter 2 takes a different approach. Rather than providing a wide range of general purpose photo-editing tools, it concentrates on one specific task – that of editing and adjusting portraits and pictures where people’s faces feature prominently.

When launched, the program displays six buttons that run across the top of the screen. Each button represents a different step in the editing process. The first button is marked 'Select Image', which opens a photo and then allows you to perform basic tasks such as image rotation colour balance adjustment.

Clicking the next button moves into the Facial Mask screen, where the Facefilter 2 will automatically attempt to analyse the photo and detect features such as eyes, nose and lips.
Once that’s done, click the Enhance button to open a standard selection of photo-editing tools, such as red-eye removal or the ‘smoothing’ tool, which can be used to remove wrinkles and other skin blemishes.

However, Facefilter’s best features are located within the Facial Expression button.

Here, the program outlines a set of templates that can be used to modify people’s facial expressions, such as ‘smile’, ‘sexy’ and ‘sad’. Rather than it being style over substance, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the results were often very effective. There's also the option to modify these templates by using simple slider controls to adjust details such as the droop of a person’s lips or the shape of their eyebrows.

Reallusion Facefilter 2 can’t replace the wider range of photo-editing tools found in rivals such as Photoshop Elements, but its facial editing tools will be very useful for anyone that does a lot of portrait photography – or who simply wants to make their mates look silly.

Vista compatible: Yes