Testimonials for Beauty Box Video Plugin

Beauty Box Video smooths out unwanted skin wrinkles so your client appears to have never had them. It’s difficult to show you the 'before' and 'after' images — since the 'before' images never *really* happened. Instead of an image gallery, we have listed the compliments and accolades that Beauty Box Video has gathered. Let us know if you have one to add!








Playing Music with a Bike (and using Beauty Box for Skin Retouching!)


Johnnnyrandom, a professional composer and sound designer, is on a mission to break new ground and show the world the power of found objects, especially within the context of music. In his project "Bespoken", he documents his creative process behind making music from a bicycle. Johnnyrandom specializes in “Musique Concrète,” an experimental musical composition technique that uses recorded sounds as raw material. He strives to promote awareness of one's surroundings by tuning into the intrinsic sounds produced by everyday objects and has been combining sound and video to convey his message.

Johnnyrandom produces videos for his projects to surprise his audience with extreme close-ups of the objects he uses to make his music. He feels that filming, producing, and editing videos himself, in addition to playing found objects, comes with many challenges, including managing the lighting, camera, and composition of the shots, not to mention the post-production work on the footage he shoots as a one-man band. In “Bespoken,” Johnnyrandom faced many problems with lighting, hard shadows, and lots of shine on close-ups of his hands and face. The solution was to take advantage of skin retouching and digital makeup to save the footage. “Beauty Box was perfect for masking the skin, reducing shine/shadow, and pulling the red skin tones into a more natural-looking place,” he says.

Using Beauty Box to retouch hands on Bespoken

If you have not watched “Bespoken”, you definitely should! In this teaser , Johnnyrandom breaks down a bicycle's components and shows the process of making an entire composition from a bike - no traditional instruments added. It is a fantastic combination of his experience riding a bike for the first time, raw sounds, close-ups, and a complex melody that transports the audience into a unique world of beauty and nostalgia. Unlike most of his rough behind-the-scenes video experiments for other projects, “Bespoken” demanded more time planning the shots and making sure the footage looked polished in post.

Everything was shot within a few hours by cinematographer Devin Whetstone on an improvised afternoon, and editing was done with the help of award-winning editor and filmmaker Blake Bogosian. Johnnyrandom used Beauty Box to retouch the hands on the close-ups, which made a massive difference in how the final treatment came out. Retouching hands can be challenging - since Beauty Box does not detect a face, it is usually better to mask the hands manually. See this video tutorial example! However, Johnnyrandom says Beauty Box was very easy to use, and masking the hands to apply and adjust the effects took no time. He explains, “It’s a solid plugin that can get great results quickly.”

Curious about how to get better results retouching hands or any other skin area with Beauty Box? Send us a sample of your footage to cs@digitalanarchy.com and download a demo to see how the plugin works!

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ArtBridge


ArtBridge

Beauty Box helps correct shine and lighting on documentary film interviews


Emmy award winner Nisma Zaman has an extensive background in producing reality-based films for a variety of audiences. She specializes in digital content creation and interactive creative technologies and is known for the high quality and great content of her videos. Recently, Zaman was invited to create a short documentary video for ArtBridge’s #7on16th project, an exhibition of murals by seven prominent female and non-binary NYC street artists.

Over the course of five long days, Zaman followed each artist as they created their mural, and then spent a week editing a fun overview of the full installation process. “Producing, directing and editing this piece was both a great pleasure and a challenge. I interviewed all seven artists up in the lifts next to their works (14 feet above street level), where I couldn’t fully control the lighting and interview setups,” explains Zaman.

While filming the progress of the street murals, Zaman knew she would need to retouch her footage slightly so the interviewees could look their best on-screen. “There wasn’t sufficient time, equipment, and/or space to get the lighting perfect or position an interviewee in relation to existing light, so this is what prompted me to use Beauty Box,” Zaman recalls.

Using Beauty Box in reality-based footage

Zaman’s main problem with the footage was the distraction caused by skin shine and uncontrolled light. “I used Beauty Box on the founder’s face to remove shine, but also on all of the artist interviews, to smooth their skin. They were in the middle of the mural creation, which required hours of hard work under the sun, and taking breaks to freshen up before the interviews was not an option,” Zaman says.

For ArtBridge and all the other artist profile projects she applied Beauty Box to, Zaman makes sure to reduce the smoothing amount percentages to 20-30% so she can get the most natural look possible. In her opinion, it is also important to always select the dark and light colors for the mask. This allows Beauty Box to identify the range of tones on a subject and adjust the skin smoothing accordingly.

The tips come from 5 years of experience using Beauty Box to perfect artist profile videos and/or overviews on contemporary art exhibitions. Zaman used the plugin for the first time while working at the Guggenheim Museum, where she produced over 160 videos filmed in NYC, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and Mexico City. “In every project, applying Beauty Box to the footage was a quick and easy process, so I would highly recommend the plugin. It’s a huge time-saver and a great way to make people look more rested, as well as to smooth over any blemishes,” Zaman concludes.

To learn more about Nisma Zaman’s work visit https://nismazaman.com. Ready to try Beauty Box Video? Download a free trial for Windows or Mac.

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JB Nuttle: Music videos for World One Video

JB Nuttle, director/editor, records talented musicians doing live performances, and then makes the recordings available to the artist for promotion on sites such as YouTube and Facebook.

I use Beauty Box and love the results. I often record performers who, shall we say, "are not so young anymore." Beauty Box really does the trick smoothing out the lines in faces and reducing ages.

JB Nuttle, World One Video

Margarita Monet: Creating music videos for Edge of Paradise

We talked to Margarita Monet, lead singer of Edge of Paradise. The band has been taking advantage of visual effects to enrich their music and create unique videos. In this interview, Margarita discusses how visual effects are helping to shape Edge of Paradise’s identity and explains how she has been using Beauty Box Video to improve the image quality of her videos. .

Check out the before and after shots or the high resolution still here.

As Margarita says, "It was shot in a recording studio and we had some limitation with lighting. When using 4K cameras, it creates a very high-quality image, and all the details are visible. That's s a problem if you've got poor lighting. Beauty Box worked great to polish up the look! Extremely effective and time efficient."

The full interview breaking down their entire creative process when shooting their videos, along with the final videos, are on the AnarchyJim Blog!

Universal Music Making Their Artists Look Great

We always need to make our artists look their best and Beauty Box from Digital Anarchy is the go-to software plug-in for this purpose. It's an enhancer rather than a replacer and it brings out the natural flesh tones and removes unsightly lighting effects without looking air-brushed.

Dave Pollard, Head of Video Production for Universal Music.

Park Road Post Production Uses Custom Version of BB for Feature Films

Beauty Box has been very beneficial to our pipeline, and has helped further improve the quality of the work we can provide and the timeframes we can turn shots around in. The Digital Anarchy support team has been fantastic to work with as we got Beauty Box up and running with Nuke and linux.

Darwin Go, VFX Supervisor, Park Road Post Production

Jeff Loch: Music videos for Pagadixx and Ma2x

Jeff Loch, a director/editor/colorist, based in Lyon, France used Beauty Box on music videos for DJs, Pagadixx and Ma2x. On YouTube, the two videos have gotten 6 million views. They're a couple great examples of how Beauty Box Video is used for retouching music videos with high production values. It's a very common use even if most stars won't talk about it.

Even when the talent looks great there are still always issues of seeing too much detail in the skin with HD and 4K. Jeff used Beauty Box to apply a bit of digital makeup where the talent didn't have quite the look they were going for.

JeffLoch.com

Jason Bowdach Uses Beauty Box in Grading The Comedy Film "The Big O"

The Big O image

Jason Bowdach’s company motto is “We Tell Stories with COLOR”. Jason is a Colorist and Online Editor at Cinetic Studios in Los Angeles and he happens to own the place as well. Jason shared his work on the soon to be released short comedy called “The Big O”.

The Big O Portrait Image

“I recently finished color grading a short comedy film (28 min) shot on a bunch of Canon 5Ds called "The Big O" and I used Beauty Box for Resolve ALL over the place.

All the main female characters have some level of Beauty Box on all their shots. I even found some pretty unique "side" uses with some creative over qualification combined with power masks in Resolve, such as warming up the whites of the coffee cup as it differed between scenes.

Even in Resolve, I still found the CC features of Beauty Box useful for fast & mild adjustments as it already had a mask.

Lastly, I also found that since I had the effect on all of my shots, the built in sharpen effect did a very nice job of consistently bringing out eye lights and important detail, which might have been a bit soft after being pushed around so much. This was another neat unintended use of Beauty Box. "

Cinetic Studios offers color correction and grading, visual effects (such as atmospheric enhancements & beauty/cosmetic fixed), and online finishing for Television, Web and Digital Theater.

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Willy B Carrie Underwood Portrait

Willy B!, TVforRadio, Broadcast Commercials feat. Country Music Stars

Series of broadcast spots done for a couple country music stations (WIL, St. Louis, and KUPL, Portland) and featuring Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan.Willy B! told us, "As Director, producer and editor one of my many goals is to protect the talent. Their image is as important to me as I'm sure it is to them.

Our make-up artist's Rommie Martinez (92.3 WIL) and Emily Colt (98.7 The Bull) are as good as it gets. Even with their amazing skills, I always include Digital Anarchy's Beauty Box into the post production pipeline. No matter how great the talent looks, Beauty Box simply takes it to the next level.

Hubbard Broadcasting's 92.3 WIL in St. Louis

Brittany: This TVforRadio™ commercial was filmed in and around the legendary Blueberry Hill on Delmar in the Loop, St Louis, MO. The spot was shot by Dave Rutherford (Canon C300) and Marshall Burnette (Canon 5D MKII) with Canon glass and edited, composited and finished with Pro Tools, After Effects, Beauty Box and Mocha planar tracker. VO provided by Chad Erickson.

Rachel: This TVforRadio™ commercial was filmed in and around St Louis, MO. The spot was shot by Dave Rutherford with a Canon C300 with Canon lenses and produced and edited with Pro Tools, AE, Beauty Box and Mocha. VO provided by Chad Erickson. This campaign was a blast to work on!

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Alpha Broadcasting's KUPL - 98.7 The Bull (Jennifer)

Meet Jenny. A beautiful woman with an amazing voice! The voice belongs to legendary VO talent John Willyard. This TVforRadio™ spot was shot by Willy B! on a Canon 5D MKII with a 70-200mm f2.8 L lens and edited, composited and finished with Pro Tools, AE, Beauty Box and Film Convert.

beauty box example

Edmondo Etinetti Uses Beauty Box For Visual Effects on the Film "Eyeball"

Edmondo Tinetti is a creative Motion Graphic Designer / Nonlinear Edtior at Etinetti Media based in San Francisco Bay area.

Edmondo just completed a Sci Fi thriller called Eyeball. The scenes were shot with the idea that the Eyeball “users” would become zombie-like once they squeezed and interacted with the Eyeball. However 3 weeks into production Edmondo and the team realized they didn’t want to scare people into using EyeBall, they wanted to attract them. As in nature, very poisonous plants and animals can be very exotic and beautiful.

They wanted to use this angle – attracting people to the EyeBall. Edmond said, “Beauty Box was the answer. I used Beauty Box before so I knew if you increased the smoothing, the texture of the skin would create this unworldly look.” Bingo – it was exactly what they were looking for.

The workflow was generating a mask for the face and tracking data via Mocha Pro then importing it into After Effects where Beauty Box was applied on the Mask. This resulted in isolating the beauty effect only on the face of EyeBall Users and not on non-users in the same shot. The final looks like an amazing make-up and not an effect.

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LA Kings Bikini Calendar photo example

Aaron Brenner, LA Kings Ice Crew Calendar

While you might not think these women would need Beauty Box, Aaron Brenner of LA Kings Vision says, "it’s been a huge help on this project and many other videos they produce. Apparently everyone can use a little digital makeup!"

Click to watch video

Rudi Schwab, Director/DP for Aveda & Nexxus hair

"Love this software and it's very simple to use. I got the plugin for FCP. You simply drag the beauty box effect onto a clip in the timeline, open up the effects tab in the viewer window, click on, "analyze frame" and adjust the smoothing slider to your liking. I was amazed at how well the effect works on skin tones, it looks as good as sitting in a $1500 per hour Flame suite. Thanks Jim!"

Aria Beauty Box example

Sean Kennedy Santos

"A couple clips shot by Sean Kennedy Santos, that used Beauty Box to enhance the skin. They were shot for a promotional movie that the Aria Resort in Las Vegas produced."

Click to watch video

faith fasting football beauty box example

Ed Pickart, Motion Post TV

Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football - Documentary Film

I love Beauty Box and have been using it for years! In one documentary we did, Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football, we used it quite a bit. In this example, the subject is a high school student who, like many his age, happened to have pretty severe acne. This scene was important for the movie, and he is a main character in it, but unfortunately we found his acne so distracting that we worried the point of the scene would be lost for the audience.

The goal in this example was to smooth the subject's complexion enough so that it would no longer distract from the scene.

I knew that I wouldn't be able to eliminate the blemishes entirely but if I could knock out some of the harsher aspects of his acne, we'd be fine. I did push the effect more than the other portions of the movie we used it on, but it didn't take much fiddling to get the right balance between a smoothed out complexion and a reasonably natural look. I think It came out very well.

This was edited in Final Cut Pro and the footage (Panasonic Vericam 720p24) was so well shot that 95% of my color grading was done right in the timeline using the standard 3-way CC, with the 1-way CC as a secondary, then tempered with a custom set Broadcast Safe - all FCP stock effects. I was also already using Beauty Box in a few of the other interviews because, while High Def video is great, often the shot could benefit from a little BB touch-up.

Click see another example of Beauty Box

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naughty girl beauty box example

Kasper V. Kristensen, Executive Producer, Eye Light Video

"Beauty Box is the one plugin we always use in our music video productions and high fashion videos. Not only to clean up blemishes and imperfections in the skin but also to give certain shadow areas around the nose, eyes, chin and hairline a softer look. We love the plugin and what it does to the overall look of our productions. It really is an essential tool which makes the artists and models look absolutely amazing. The only downside to Beauty Box is the makeup artists gets all the credit!"

Artist: Ida Corr, Song: Naughty Girl

franco sattamini beauty box example

Franco Sattamini

"Beauty Box is the perfect solution for skin blemishes. It is easy to use, accurate and flexible. It allows you to nail down the range of skin tones as it offers a wide variety of color and contrast correction that can be adjusted with or without your custom skin mask. You can actually get creative and use it for things other than skin, such as backgrounds. And yes, it is affordable!!! To wrap it all up, the Digital Anarchy people are absolutely awesome - you can actually talk to them . . . Imagine that! Simply put, I can't imagine post production without it!" -Franco Sattamini, Producer & Director

Click to watch video Somboday That I Used to Know (Brazalian Groove) by Inspector Chi feat. Alana Marie

Click to watch second video You Da One - Extended Acoustic version by Inspector Chi

http://www.justfranco.com

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LA kings calendar beauty box example

Aaron Brenner, of the LA Kings hockey team

We were excited to receive an email from Aaron Brenner, of the LA Kings hockey team, letting us know that they had used Beauty Box Video on a high profile piece they were doing.

An interesting aspect to Beauty Box Video is that it's difficult to get people to admit they are using it. A LOT of production companies have bought and loved the software but they're a little shy about singing its praises publicly. Their actor and actress clients aren't too keen about wanting fans to know they used software to make them (more) beautiful.

This wasn't a problem for the subjects of Aaron's production for the Kings. It's a behind the scenes video of the photo shoot of the LA King's Ice Girls calendar! Some very beautiful girls who you wouldn't think would need much retouching.

click to read an interview and see a 'making of' video'

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Do more jobs faster without sacrificing quality

"I just want to say that I was skeptical at first to get the BEAUTY BOX Video plugin for use with After Effects. But now, after actually biting the bullet and giving it a go, I must say I AM NOW A BELIEVER. It is absolutely amazing.

Though there are ways to achieve smooth skin with footage, your product did much more efficiently and most importantly rendered EXTREMELY FAST. This product does for Skin smoothing like MochaPro does for Tracking. And like that product, it's worth EVERY PENNY. I now have the means to do more jobs faster without sacrificing quality."

– Vincent MacTiernan

Extreme Digital Productions

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It is a must have for independent filmmakers!

Feburary 2011 -- "I have been looking for a good, affordable plugin for After Effects (CS5) to do digital makeup for the talent in our independent film, 2012: Devolution.

I stumbled on Beauty Box yesterday, downloaded the demo, and applied it to several scenes last night to see what it could do. In short, I was amazed at the power and simplicity of this program! Regardless of the lighting or other variables, it consistently and vastly improved the look and feel of the footage — my talent is going to be very excited by the final product. Needless to say, I rushed in this morning and placed an order for Beauty Box! Thank you so much for all of the hard work bringing this program to us — it is a must have for independent filmmakers! I will do my part to help spread the word."

– Howard Waddell

2012 Productions

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I received the best support I've ever received from a software company

December 2010 -- "I'll be recommending Beauty Box to all my associates. When I had questions and needed help, I received the best support I've ever received from a software company.

When other companies would have directed me to my hardware provider, the support personnel at Digital Anarchy helped me each step of the way and didn't stop until I had the correct drivers installed for my hardware and everything was working perfectly... and all of this was pre-sales support! Overall an excellent company to deal with!."

– Michael McGaha

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We were able to solve the problem the same afternoon we downloaded it

Octber 2010 -- "BeautyBox is almost magical. We didn't have time to properly light our scene, and the artists didn't look like themselves.

Options were slim and costly. With BeautyBox, we were able to solve the problem the same afternoon we downloaded it. The facial tracking really works, the skin-tone algorithms are pretty natural, and the interface is simple. I'm still amazed."

– Bill Evans

Radiant Records

[Project: Steve Morse & Sarah Spencer promotional video.]

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It just makes a huge difference and at the same time is very subtle

August 2010 -- "I just wanted to let you know how awesome this plugin is. I have been experimenting with it on various types of interview footage and what is truly amazing about it, is it's invisibility!

Once applied you really can't tell that a plugin of this nature was used. It just makes a huge difference and at the same time is very subtle. I have various other plugins that claim to do the same thing, but when compared to Beauty Box they just fall way short."

--Michael Maller

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Another knockout from Digital Anarchy

May 2010 -- "I'm working on a feature doc with MANY interviews, some grabbed quickly in tough situations, and my first round of tests with Beauty Box have been just great.

Several interviews that I was really sweating are now looking so much better...the results are natural looking and take care of the tough details that come out in HD faces! Another knockout from Digital Anarchy...thanks!"

– Doug Blush

Owner/Director

MadPix, Inc

Los Angeles, CA

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It's not overwhelming or fake-looking

April 2010 -- "I am working on a mini-documentary (under 10 min) for a nonprofit organization, which serves adults with developmental disabilities, to promote their biennial "Variety Show" on their website via Youtube. I shot a bunch of close-up interviews with the staff, students and the executive director, to go along with the footage they shot of the show.

"Beauty Box has made such a difference. It's not overwhelming or fake-looking. I know the women in my current video are going to be *extremely* pleased with this video (and me) when they see how great they look, which I hope will result in more business. They just look so fabulous I can't wait for them to see it! I wish I could go back to other videos I've already produced and use this effect on those as well, but at least I have it now."

– Amy Hanselmann

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Beauty Box... will thrill anyone appearing on camera

April 2010 -- "A TV personality (of a certain age) that I shot an interview with didn't exactly dig her HD close-ups. I was on a tight deadline, she was in NYC and I was in L.A. She was insisting on a re-shoot with a new makeup person.

I told her we had neither time nor budget. Frantic, I started calling skin colorists/ specialists in L.A. to see if the footage was fixable. The less expensive ones were quoting $300 - $500 per hr., with no guarantees of quality.

"Then I stumbled across Beauty Box on the web, tried the free sample download and was blown away by the result. I sent the re-touched footage to the talent, and she was thrilled. No re-shoot, deadline made. If you're shooting HD, Beauty Box is a must-have, simple-to-use plug in that will thrill anyone appearing on camera. And best of all, you no longer have to tell clients those dreaded words, "Look, I'm not a freakin' magician!" Thank you Digital Anarchy.

"On the technical side, I think it's important to let customers know that they should add Beauty Box after all other changes are made and picture is basically locked. Going back in to make changes once Beauty Box has been applied can be tough. But the results are worth any pain. ;) "

– Peter Mackie
Clear Stream Films
clearstreamfilms.com

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I need tools that work out of the box and get the job done

March 2010 -- "What led me to Beauty Box (BB) is the following situation: My short "how-to" video was filmed on location in a near zero degree Vermont barn, where a supermodel's skin wouldn't look good, let alone the talented over-40 horseperson.

I needed to find a way to reduce wrinkles fast. A quick google search of pro video-related websites turned up BB as the go-to product for on-screen talent wrinkle reduction. While I was initially reluctant to pay the $ to buy BB because my budget was very tight, I decided that the trade-off in time savings, ease of use and quality of results would make up for the $ investment.

"I have neither the budget nor the time to learn precise post production techniques. I need tools that work out of the box, have very short learning curves, and get the job done.

"Downloading and installing the software was quick and easy, and I was editing within 24 hours. My only big challenge was how to reduce the long render times (I shoot in HDV, edit on a newer Macbook Pro, and the clip that needed BB was about 3 minutes in duration). My first two times I let the machine render overnight, but then learned, with the benefit of a helpful email from you guys at DA, that I could speed things up considerably by adjusting a few key settings. Overall, this product worked for me, and I look forward to the update that further optimizes render time."

Here is a link to the finished video on YouTube.

– David Rupert
Founder, Whitebrook Media
Greenwich, CT

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I think Beauty Box Frakin' Rocks

March 2010 -- "As someone who is always pushing the limits in production and post, having something like Beauty Box as part of my toolset is indispensable.

On a recent shoot for a big corporate client, we had an issue with our “talent” having had a little extra to eat and drink the night before, leaving his skin noticeably ruddier and somewhat more red in all the wrong places.

"I was able to grab a couple of clips and process the footage in the FCP version of Beauty Box right onset to let us know if we would have any success by bringing in an additional makeup artist or if it was going to be necessary to reschedule the shoot until this CEO’s skin cleared up. After looking at my quick test, we were able to have our makeup artist smooth the tone somewhat and leave the clean up and smoothing out the ruddy texture of his complexion in post.

"We have since gotten additional work from this client, asking if we can bring the “magic” back again, I cannot tell you enough how much I think Beauty Box Frakin' Rocks."

– Gary Adcock
Studio 37
Chicago

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Your program worked right out of the box

March 2010 -- "Everyone knows that skin issues are only magnified by video lights & cameras and such. It is really cool that with this plug-in one can fix those sorts of things in the post, and not in some plastic, fakey way.

Very cool... Seriously, it's an awesome plug-in. Too many require bizarre hacky work arounds that are a real bear. Your program worked right out of the box in both Premiere Pro and After Effects."

– Bohuš Blahut
modern filmmaker
The Vantage Point, Chicago

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The real value... was that it made us more productive

February 2010 -- "We recently used Beauty Box on a project featuring a high profile celebrity. The real value of the software was that it made us more productive.

For the kind of touchup we did, we could have done the work in After Effects alone, but Beauty Box made our workflow much easier. It saved us time and allowed us to be more productive, which made the client happy. Also, the ability to generate a quick, accurate mask was invaluable. Not only did we use it within Beauty Box, but we were able to use that mask with other effects, like color correction."

– Lisa E Yimm
Founder & Digital Artist, HDR-VFX, LLC
San Francisco & New York
hdrvfx.com

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It really saved our bacon on this shoot

December 2009 -- "Our model was pretty blown away as well after she saw these. Real trick though was a great make up artist taking her let's say 60% of the way there, and then Beauty Box does a great job on the last 40%... Garbage in, Garbage out so to speak. I'm happy for beauty box to get the credit as it really saved our bacon on this shoot."

– Ross Webb
San Francisco, CA

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