Beyond Retouching
The best portrait retouching software has become even better
We have reviewed all the past versions of PortraitPro and this year, Anthropics has come up with a major upgrade, the PortraitPro 21. Apart from ine-tuning the features, the company has incorporated some advanced features into this software including sky replacement, which it inherits from Anthropics’ popular Landscape Pro software.
Key Features
The PortraitPro 21 does everything that the earlier versions have been doing for long. So instead of exploring face sculpting and associated features we have covered extensively in our previous reviews, we would focus our efforts on the latest features in the latest version.
Lighting Brushes
The new lighting brushes offer great lexibility and ine-tuning possibilities enhancing your portraits. This tool is smart enough to distinguish between the background and foreground. You can modify shadows and brightness using different light sources and ine-tune the properties of light for seamless blending.
Sky replacement
This is one feature that has been adopted from LandscapePro. With this, you can replace skies in your portraits effortlessly. PortraitPro 21 will automatically mask and blend your images. You can tweak the tones of the foreground to match the new sky and inely control the effect so that it does not overpower your images.
Hair highlights
Hair retouching has never been so easy in earlier versions of PortraitPro. The latest version allows you to precisely control and add highlights on hair with new smart hair tools. You can customise undertones, adjust strength, and increase vibrance for professional colouring results.
Remove noise
Now you can reduce or remove noise without sacri icing image detail and quality. PortraitPro 21 lets you eliminate luminance and colour noise, and sharpen the image without enhancing noise.
History tool
The new history tool allows you to track changes and restore a portion of an image to an earlier state, whilst leaving the rest of the modi ied image as is.
Colour Styles
The colour styles option allows you to apply a preset or create your own preset. PortraitPro 21 also lets you tweak various parameters of the image even after applying the presets.
Evaluation
PortraitPro 21 offers a complete package for editing every aspect of a portrait and retouch it by inely controlling various features. The software offers an extensive set of controls. The most important aspect of this software, in my opinion, is the excellent hands-on tutorials on the home page that can be referred to again and again to get yourself acquainted with all the features.
The software now allows more options for non-destructive editing with masking and unmasking options. The AI-enabled masking options are also commendable.
Value for Money
The PortraitPro 21 is available in Standard, Studio and Studio Max editions. The Standard edition is available at U.S $54.95 (approximately Rs.4106). The Studio edition includes Smart Filter for Photoshop and Lightroom.
It also provides Raw and DN ile support. The Studio version retails at U.S. $84.95 (approximately Rs.6350). The Studio Max edition includes automatic batch processing in addition to Studio features and retails at U.S. $169.95 (approximately Rs.12,700). We feel that this is good value for money. The software comes with a full money-back guarantee.