What PortraitPro actually does
PortraitPro is a desktop application built for one job: retouching portrait photos using AI-assisted tools rather than manual pixel editing. Instead of opening a general-purpose editor and manually dodging, burning and cloning, you open a portrait in PortraitPro and the software automatically detects the face, estimates age and gender, and offers a set of sliders and brushes tuned specifically to skin, eyes, hair, and facial structure. It's made by Anthropics Technology Ltd, a privately held, self-funded UK software company that has been building imaging software since 1998 and is run by UK-based leadership with no identified outside or non-European investor.
The core product
At the centre of PortraitPro is ClearSkin, the company's skin-smoothing technology, now in its fifth generation, which aims to remove blemishes and even out skin tone while preserving natural texture rather than producing the plastic-looking over-smoothing associated with older retouching tools. Around that sits a full portrait toolkit: face sculpting (adjusting the shape of eyes, nose, jaw and other features), digital relighting that can add or redirect light sources on an already-shot photo, hair recoloring with more than 40 base shades plus highlight and balayage options, eye enhancement (iris colour, whitening, sharpening), and a digital makeup layer covering eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, blush and lipstick in multiple styles. The software runs as a standalone application and, in its Studio and Studio Max editions, also installs as a Smart Filter plugin inside Photoshop, so retouching can happen inside an existing workflow rather than as a separate round-trip.
What's new or notable
The current release, PortraitPro 24, adds three generative-AI tools on top of the existing toolkit: an inpainting tool for the mouth and teeth area, a tool to reduce reflections in glasses (a long-standing problem for portrait photographers shooting subjects who wear glasses), and a face-recovery tool aimed at sharpening faces that came out blurry in the original shot. These sit alongside the existing ClearSkin, sculpting and relighting tools rather than replacing them, and the company continues to release incremental annual versions rather than moving to a continuous-subscription model.
Who should use PortraitPro
Great fit if…
- You shoot portraits regularly (family photography, headshots, event photography) and want dedicated, fast retouching tools rather than manually editing every face in a general photo editor.
- You prefer paying once for software you own outright over paying a recurring subscription for a photo tool.
- You want editing to happen locally on your own machine rather than through a photo-editing web app or cloud service.
Skip it if…
- You need a mobile-first or browser-based editing workflow — PortraitPro is a Windows/Mac desktop application first and foremost.
- You only occasionally retouch a photo and don't want to pay for standalone software at all, even as a one-off purchase.
- You need RAW file support or Photoshop plugin integration but only want to pay for the base tier — those two things require the pricier Studio or Studio Max editions.
Pricing in detail
Checked live via an EU-based browser session against Anthropics' own checkout (anthropics.com/portraitpro/buy/) on 2026-09-05: the cart auto-detected a EUR/VAT-included price rather than the USD figure shown on the plain product page to non-geolocated visitors. The checkout displays a permanent 50%-off "download discount" against a higher listed regular price; the figures below are the discounted price actually charged, VAT included.
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| PortraitPro 24 | €54.95 one-time (listed regular price €109.90) | Full retouching toolkit (ClearSkin, sculpting, relighting, hair, eyes, makeup) as a standalone app; JPEG/TIFF workflow only |
| PortraitPro Studio 24 | €94.95 one-time (listed regular price €189.90) | Everything in the base edition, plus RAW file support and the Photoshop Smart Filter plugin |
| PortraitPro Studio Max 24 | €174.95 one-time (listed regular price €349.90) | Everything in Studio, plus additional bundled Anthropics tools (per the vendor's checkout page) for the highest tier |
Where it falls short
- Desktop-only: no full-featured web or cross-platform cloud editing experience for anyone who wants to work from a browser or across devices without reinstalling.
- Feature tiers are split in a way that pushes photographers who shoot RAW towards the pricier Studio edition even if they don't need the rest of Studio's extras.
- The permanent "50% off" pricing display on the checkout page makes the actual everyday price harder to pin down than a single flat listed price would.
Privacy & data
PortraitPro is a locally installed desktop application, and photo editing itself is performed on the user's own computer rather than uploaded to an Anthropics-hosted processing service, which limits the company's routine access to the images people are actually retouching. Anthropics' published privacy policy (support.anthropics.com/privacy/) covers account and purchase data — name, address, email, payment information, IP address and product-usage data — and states data may be transferred outside the EEA in some cases, standard for a company selling internationally, under GDPR-compliant safeguards described in that policy. The policy does not spell out photo-specific handling in the version reviewed, since photo processing is local to the desktop app rather than routed through Anthropics' servers as part of normal use.
How we checked this
Verified against Anthropics' own official pages: the PortraitPro product and buy pages (anthropics.com/portraitpro/, anthropics.com/portraitpro/buy/, anthropics.com/portraitpro/buy/studio/, anthropics.com/portraitpro/buy/studiomax/) for pricing, editions and system requirements; the company's refund policy page (anthropics.com/refunds/) for the 30-day money-back guarantee; and its privacy policy (support.anthropics.com/privacy/) for data-handling terms. Company incorporation and ownership were checked against context already verified for this listing (Anthropics Technology Ltd, UK-registered, self-funded since 1998). Live checkout pricing was confirmed on 2026-09-05 via an EU-geolocated browser session, which returned native EUR, VAT-included prices for all three editions.
What you get, what you give up
What you get
- One-time purchase with no subscription: pay once, keep the licensed version indefinitely, with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied.
- Processing happens locally in the desktop application on your own computer rather than through a vendor-hosted cloud pipeline, which keeps your source photos off Anthropics' servers during editing.
- Anthropics Technology has been self-funded and privately held out of the UK since 1998, with no identified non-European investor or controlling stake, and continues to ship yearly updates (PortraitPro 24 as of this writing).
- Deep, purpose-built feature set for portraits specifically — skin retouching (ClearSkin), face sculpting, relighting, hair recoloring, eye enhancement and digital makeup — rather than a general photo editor bolting portrait tools on as an afterthought.
What you give up
- The checkout permanently displays a '50% download discount' against a higher listed regular price, which makes the actual everyday price harder to pin down than a single flat listed price would.
- It is desktop-only software (Windows/macOS); there is no web app and only a separate, limited standalone mobile app, so it's not a fit for anyone wanting to retouch entirely from a phone.
- RAW file support and the Photoshop Smart Filter plugin are locked to the Studio and Studio Max editions — the base PortraitPro edition works from JPEG/TIFF exports only.
- The checkout page permanently displays a '50% off' discounted price against a higher 'regular' price, a pricing presentation that makes it hard to know if the discounted figure is really the everyday price or a rotating promotion.