First Exposure: Anthropics Technology’s PortraitPro 15

In the nearly ten years that Anthropics Technology’s PortraitPro software has existed, it has become the industry standard for portrait retouching. The latest version, PortraitPro 15, succeeds PortraitPro 12 (no word on what happened to 13 and 14) with some new features and further enhancements to existing features. It is available for Mac and Windows platforms, including 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, in Standard, Studio, and Studio Max editions. MSRP pricing is $80, $120 and $40, respectively, with discounts and upgrade pricing available. The Standard edition is targeted at photographers shooting TIFF and JPEG formats. The Studio version accommodates RAW file formats, provides Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photoshop Elements plug-in support, color management and 48-bit color support, and limited batch processing. I tested the Studio Max version that includes all of the features of the Studio edition as well as fully automatic batch processing.

What’s New

Two major new features are available in all editions of PortraitPro 15: Makeup Controls and wide-angle lens distortion correction. There are nine categories in the new Makeup Controls panel, with color selection options and multiple sliders in most categories: Lipstick, Mascara, Upper Eyeshadow, Lower Eyeshadow, Eyeliner, Blusher, Bronzer, Highlighter and Eyebrow Pencil.

The correction for wide-angle lens distortion is a slider in the Face Sculpt Controls panel and is designed for correcting the distortion often found in selfies or other portraits taken from too close a distance with too wide angle of a lens. Anthropics also enhanced corrections for portraits of children and more advanced skin-coloring controls, allowing you to add a healthy glow to skin.

User Friendliness

With each new version, Anthropics finds a way to make PortraitPro easier to use; for both new or long-time users, PortraitPro 15 is no different. With large before and after views available (or not, if you choose), you can quickly see the result of every automatic or manual change made to the portrait.

The tool options in PortraitPro allow you to make dramatic changes to portraits, including the ability to reshape and relight faces and to add makeup (right) where none existed in the original image (left). Photos © Stan Sholik

What We Liked

I found the new makeup controls to be pretty amazing. On my commercial and advertising shoots, we employ makeup artists to do substantially the same makeup services that these controls provide. For high school senior or editorial photographers who don’t have the benefit of professional models and makeup artists, these sliders will be invaluable. Many of the effects, such as Blusher and Bronzer, are fairly subtle even at full power, as they should be. Others, such as Lipstick, allow you to make very obvious changes and in a wide range of colors, even when the subject wears little or no makeup. Think goth Grandma!

The wide-angle lens distortion tool is less exciting. Yes, it changes the look of the subject’s face and seems to remove wide-angle distortion, but ultimately does little, in my opinion, to make the subject more attractive. Will casual selfie shooters race home to fix distortion? Will professionals shoot frame-filling portraits with 24mm lenses because they can now correct the distortion? Lens Correction strikes me as a feature in need of a problem. What would be valuable is a tool to correct wide-angle perspective distortion of subjects at the ends of group shots, which often must be captured with a wide-angle lens.

While not a new feature, the batch processing function in the Studio Max edition deserves mention. Continued improvements make it invaluable for quickly correcting a large batch of portraits, particularly to generate proofs from a portrait session. You can use an Anthropics preset or one of your own during the process and store the results in a separate folder. When you or your client decide on selected images, you can go back and fine tune the batch process results to final images. Batch processing is automatic, quick and offers many options prior to the processing.

What We Didn’t Like

There are a couple of nitpicks dating back to previous versions that have yet to be dealt with. All PortraitPro editions include a touch-up brush that lets you manually make skin corrections. There are sliders to control the brush size and strength, but none for brush hardness/feather. At high strengths the manual touch-ups stand out, which could be minimized with a feathered brush.

And in the PortraitPro editions that support Photoshop plug-ins, I worry that a new user won’t realize that the PortraitPro adjustments are made to the original image and that it’s possible to save the adjusted image over the original. I wish there was a warning that the user should duplicate the original image to a new layer before opening it in PortraitPro. Or even better, I’d like PortraitPro to be able to run as a Smart Filter so that I could return to the adjustments at a later time without starting again from scratch.

How It Compares

If you are retouching a single portrait, there are many excellent software options. I know professional retouchers who only use the tools in Photoshop, and have heard of some who don’t even use the heal or clone tools, removing blemishes with the dodge tool exclusively. For the rest of us, the retouching tools in Digital Anarchy Beauty Box, Imagenomic Portraiture, onOne Photo Portrait and other programs come in handy. Few offer the extensive face-shaping tools that are available in PortraitPro, but all can do a good job with individual portraits when you become familiar with the tools in the programs.

But for photographers who are only occasionally called upon to do portraits, like myself, or who do large numbers of portraits in a session, the automated presets in all PortraitPro editions and the batch processing capabilities in PortraitPro Studio Max can ease the burden of their workflows tremendously.