Headshot Pro Review: Can AI Replace a Traditional Studio Portrait Session?

From e-commerce leaders to real estate agents, plenty of professionals need high-quality headshots to add to their online profiles. But getting those headshots the traditional way (via a physical photoshoot) can be quite a time-consuming and costly process.

Enter Headshot Pro, a new, AI-powered alternative to traditional studio portrait sessions. With this tool, you don’t need to hire or meet with a real photographer to get the amazing images you need for your LinkedIn profile or company website; AI makes them for you.

It sounds like a game-changer, but because I wasn’t sure if the quality of this tool would really be enough to supplant real-world studio photography, I decided to put Headshot Pro to the test. Read on through my Headshot Pro review for a full breakdown of what I found.

What Does Headshot Pro Offer?

Before I get into the details, here’s a brief introduction to Headshot Pro for those who may not have heard of this tool before, or those who aren’t entirely sure what it is and how it works.

In a nutshell, as its name implies, Headshot Pro is a platform designed to help users create amazing professional headshots of themselves or their business teams. The way it works is very simple: users upload selfies, and the AI uses those images to create sleek, LinkedIn-ready headshots in minutes.

It can work for both individuals and entire teams, and it’s suitable for professionals from almost any industry. Anyone, from actors and models to executives, realtors, managers, store owners, and entry-level employees, can use this tool to create attractive, engaging headshots with ease.

Approximately 200,000 users have worked with Headshot Pro so far, including everyone from startup founders to Fortune 500 employees, and it’s created around 18 million images, in total.

It’s not hard to see why this is such a popular tool, as the traditional way of getting high-quality portraits would be to hire a professional photographer. Many people don’t have the time, money, or inclination to do that, but Headshot Pro condenses the entire process into a few quick clicks.

Key Features of Headshot Pro

Headshot Pro doesn’t have a vast range of features, as its core purpose is clear: it’s a headshot generator. With that said, it does still have a few clever tools and even some bonus elements to provide additional value for busy professional users, so let’s take a closer look at everything this tool can do.

Selfie to Professional Headshot Generation

This is the core function of Headshot Pro. It can take simple selfies and turn them into stylish, professional-grade headshots, and it does it all in a matter of minutes. All the user has to do is follow a simple three-step process:

1. Upload your photos.
2. Let the AI process them and generate your headshots.
3. Download your favorite headshots to add to your online profiles and pages.

It really is that simple, and the whole process, start to finish, can be completed in under an hour, though the exact time will depend on which payment plan you opt for (more on that in the Pricing section).

You don’t need to take high-grade selfies, either. You can simply snap a few quick pictures in the comfort of your own home or office; as long as the AI can see your features clearly, it should have no trouble at all generating accurate, high-end images for you to use.

What’s more, if you don’t want to pay or just need a one-off headshot, the platform actually offers a free generator tool, too.

I tested it out and was quite pleasantly surprised by the results:

After uploading a selfie, I was given the ability to use various sliders, like “Zoom” and “Offset” to move and reposition the picture exactly where I wanted.

Within just a matter of seconds, I’d successfully oriented my image, like so:

The free headshot generator also offers a “Border” tab, which you can use to add a custom color border around your image.

The “Text” tab lets you add curved text around the outside of your image, while the “Background” tab uses Headshot Pro’s AI to remove and replace the background with a stylish pattern.

Again, in my personal tests, this worked perfectly, though your experience may vary depending on the quality of the photo you use.

After making my changes and adjustments, I simply had to click the “Download headshot” button to save my image.

It took a little more effort than the paid version, and it didn’t quite produce the same professional-level results, but is still quite a handy and reliable little option for those one-time uses.

More: Guide to Headshot Photography: 13 Tips for Perfect Headshots

Custom Wardrobe Options

One of the best features of Headshot Pro is its headshot customization, and here’s how it works: after uploading your selfies to the platform, you’ll be given the choice between hundreds of different “Wardrobe” options, like suits, sweaters, padded vests, and so on.

Once you pick an outfit, the AI will automatically use that when generating your images. Thanks to this, you don’t need to worry about taking your selfies all dressed up in your usual business attire, as the AI will handle that for you.

There are over 375 outfit options to pick from, including typical office/executive attire, like suits and shirts, as well as more smart casual offerings, like dresses, blouses, knitted sweaters, and short-sleeve polo shirts. There are even job-specific clothing choices, like nurses’ scrubs or safety vests.

The platform also gives you dozens of different color options to choose from, which can be helpful if you want to match your outfit with your brand’s visuals. Perhaps you run an online store with a sunshine yellow logo, for example; you can pick a yellow blazer, shirt, or sweater for your headshots to match.

Custom Backdrops

It’s not only outfits you can customize with Headshot Pro, but backdrops, too.

This works the same way: after uploading your images, you’ll be able to select from dozens of different backgrounds or settings for your AI-generated headshots. You can also switch between backdrops after the headshots have been generated, before you save and download them.

There are close to 100 backdrops at this time, and more may be added in the future. They range from very simple, neutral options, like plain white or gray backgrounds that look just like what you’d see in photo studios, to more elaborate settings, like offices, gardens, and parks.

There are even highly specific settings for certain types of professionals. The “Conference Stage” backdrop, for example, is a great option for thought leaders and public speakers, while the “Bookshelf” might work well for those in literary or arts-based careers.

Bonus Tools for Busy Professionals

Headshot Pro is primarily an AI headshot generator, but it does offer a selection of bonus tools aimed at the business crowd, including:

• LinkedIn Headline Generator
• LinkedIn Bio Generator
• LinkedIn Profile Generator
• Email Signature Generator
• Team Page Generator

All of these tools are free to use and work well at their stated intentions. They’re straightforward to work with, and even though not everyone will find value in them, it’s good to see that the company behind Headshot Pro has thought of additional little ways to help their audience.

Full Photo Ownership

For those who might be worried about the security or privacy side of Headshot Pro, here’s the good news: this brand takes privacy seriously.

It does not sell your photos to other companies, and you’re in control of the images you create, with full commercial rights and ownership rights to use them however you want. So you won’t have to worry about images you’ve made being used in ways you don’t want them to be.

30-Day Deletion

As an added security measure, Headshot Pro deletes all input photos after a seven-day period, with all AI-generated headshots also being deleted after only 30 days. You also have the ability to manually delete your data even earlier than the 30-day mark via your Headshot Pro account settings.

Pricing

Every AI platform has its price, and Headshot Pro is no different. While some AI services offer free trials or even free plans that give users limited access to their features for zero cost, this isn’t one of them; there is no way to use Headshot Pro for free.

This makes sense, as individual users could exploit a free trial or free plan to simply grab themselves a few free headshots and never need to pay to use the service at all.

So, if you want some high-quality AI headshots, you have three options to pick from, all with one-time fees and no hidden costs or auto-renewing subscriptions to worry about. All the plans also come with a 100% money back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the results. Here’s a closer look:

• Basic: This entry-level plan costs just $29 and will give you 30 headshots, total. It doesn’t include a retry, so you will have to settle for the images you get the first time around, and it’s also the slowest of the three options, with processing times of up to two hours. Basic users also don’t get to choose their outfits or backdrops from the full range of possibilities.
• Professional: This is the plan I tested, which costs $39 and gives you 50 headshots in all. You get a free retry included with this plan, so if you’re not fully satisfied the first time around, you can upload some new selfies and try again. The images on the Professional plan are also of a higher resolution, processing time is much faster (30 minutes), and you get full customization access.
• Executive: The highest-priced option, the Executive package gives you a whopping 70 total headshots for a one-off payment of $59. You get a free retry, and your images will be generated incredibly quickly, so you can complete the whole process in under half an hour. Your images will also be in 4K quality, and you can select between landscape and portrait.

Overall, I think the pricing for this tool is very fair when you compare it to what you’d expect to pay if you had a professional portrait shoot.

Who Is Headshot Pro For?

Headshot Pro is for professionals who need high-quality images of themselves. In today’s world, that description applies to almost every person of working age, as many people now have their own online profiles, LinkedIn pages, and so on, which they use to network or potentially find employment.

Thus, it doesn’t matter what field you’re in, whether it’s finance, retail, healthcare, education, or something different, you can surely benefit from using this tool. It’s so easy to work with, and, most importantly, it’s quick and affordable, too.

That matters because the usual way to get professional-grade headshots is to work with a real photographer, and real photographers can charge hundreds of dollars for their services. Headshot Pro gives you the same kind of results for under $50 if you opt for the Basic or Professional plan.

So, if you want high-end images but without a high price tag, Headshot Pro could be perfect for your needs.

The Final Verdict: Is It a Viable Alternative to a Real Studio Shoot?

I started this Headshot Pro review wondering if this AI platform could truly replicate or even replace the concept of conventional studio portrait photography. By the end, I’ve concluded that, for most people, it absolutely can.

Purists and perfectionists may still feel that AI images can never entirely replace real ones, and they may argue that the pictures generated by Headshot Pro lack the soul and fine details seen in real pictures taken by real people.

However, for most people who just want a professional-looking picture of themselves to add to their LinkedIn page or social media profiles, Headshot Pro is absolutely enough to get the job done. It produces great quality images, it works quickly, and the degree of customization is excellent, too.

As for downsides, there aren’t really any major ones to speak of. It might be nice if the platform offered a limited free trial that allowed you to test out its services before deciding whether or not to pay, but, understandably, it doesn’t, and some additional editing tools could be useful, but aren’t exactly necessary.

All in all, it’s a great tool and one that’s well worth using if you want to upgrade or replace whatever photos you’re currently using on your business profiles.