Do you remember the good old days when photo editing wasn’t popular?

People either use to skip editing entirely or use the default filters available in apps like Instagram.

With an increasing user base on social media and advancing technology, elite photo editing techniques are available for us.

We can either choose from the extensive supply of filters or edit the image as per our requirements. Photo editing tools like Photoshop come in handy for the second option.

However, it requires professional skills to use Photoshop correctly, and it’s also expensive.

Therefore, I brought you this guide explaining the new trends in editing and how you can create a similar image with affordable software.

So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

Best Photo Editing Trends to Follow

1. Clean Editing / No Filter
In recent years every other person with a smartphone camera became a potential photographer. It also resulted in intense editing of photos, making them more beautiful than what eyes can see.

Well, people used to appreciate a good body, smooth skin, and breathtaking landscapes in the past. However, now we know that half of them are edited. The recent stir in fake beauty standards has created a negative image for excess editing of portraits.

Therefore, clean editing or no filter editing is the way to move forward, especially in portrait photography. It suggests editing your image in such a way that it doesn’t look edited. Sometimes it means adjusting the brightness and contrast with minimal impacts to improve your photo.

It also boils down to clicking the image in the best way possible. Thus, decreasing the need to make the edits.

2. Digital Film
Nostalgia hits hard. As the older generation adapts to the new social media world, it is important to make them feel at home. The old film-style photographs are one way to do that.

Some photographers take it to the next step by using the older generation cameras. However, you can create a similar effect in your photo editor as well.

Go through some old photographs and get an idea of how they look. The overexposure, light leaks, soft contrast, and blurs will similarly affect your digitally edited photos.

You can also use a damaged film filter to add a similar effect to your photos quickly.

3. Retro and Vintage
It’s surprising how people are attracted to old-style photographs. We have advanced technology at our disposal that we can use to click sharp images with vibrant colors. Still, people tend to love the vintage effects.

A vintage or retro editing would mean to make your photo look like you just pulled it out of your old family album. It might contain an old VHS-type effect, warm sepia color, vignettes, and grainy texture.

The millennials and gen-z kids love to recreate the old photos similar to their grandparents or parents. Therefore, making a photo look like a vintage click can provide you an upper edge in editing for enthusiastic clients.

4. High Flash
High Flash is another photo editing technique that resembles older photographs. Not the black and white time but the late nineties one.

In the ’90s, cameras were pretty popular, and there was always a professional photographer in an event. However, sometimes due to low light, the photograph used to have abrupt light balance. It usually used to happen in night photography when natural light is not present, and creating a similar effect without much expense was not possible.

The image looked like the subject was in the spotlight due to the camera flash, and everything behind was either blacked out or dimmed. We can create a similar effect if you have uneven exposure in your image.

Instead of adding light to less exposed areas, make the clean areas more vibrant, and you will find the image looks like you took it in the ‘90s.

5. Matte Effect
A matte finish provides a grainy and washed-out look to your images. You can use it to either create a nice casual or dramatic mood look. That would depend on the context.

Matte finish removes vibrant colors and a sharp contrast from your image. You can use this effect on portraits or wedding photographs to give them a lookbook-type effect.

6. Soft and Natural
Neutral paste and light beige effects are storming the Instagram feed these days. These types of effects work best for a fashion or lifestyle blog. Anyone who wants to look simple and elegant through their photos should prefer this filter.

We can quickly achieve this effect by keeping the contrast and overexposure in limit. Moreover, add a slightly warm or cold tone to your photos, depending on the mood. A very subtle glow effect also helps to make the picture look appealing.

7. High Contrast
In contrast to the last style, this effect requires you to take the contrast over the top. You want to make the image look more vivid and sharp.

The trick looks best with some extra vibrancy and colors in your image. However, make sure you have a detailed image since darkening the shadows and lightening the highlights can result in the loss of details.

8. Creative Collages
Collages are one of the evergreen trends that never dies out. However, due to its popularity over the decades, it has gradually evolved in aesthetics.

Previously, we used to paste the photos inside some colorful frames, and it was good to go. However, nowadays, you have to make it look more appealing.

Try funky stuff like showing your features in an unordered manner, getting your pictures out of your border, and much more.

Collages are still a thing if you can be creative enough.

9. HDR Editing
HDR is an acronym for High Dynamic Range. It simply means that your image has a wide variety of colors between the brightest highlights and deepest shadows. You can use this effect to make the colors pop up in your image while keeping a natural look.

Such effects look beautiful in landscape photography or architectural images. However, misusing the filter can result in an abruptly unnatural look.

Some cameras and smartphones provide this feature in the camera by default. Using the filter to click the photo will further help you edit it in the desired range.

10. Artistic Effects
My favorite way of editing an image is to use all my creativity and paint a picture out of my imagination.

In contrast to all the effects we talked about earlier, editing your image in artistic style is more about playing with it. There is no limit to what you can do. For instance, you can add a lion head to a cat, add glitter to your dress, project galaxies in the sky, and whatnot.

All the fancy images you have ever seen fall in this category—for instance, double exposure, movie posters, and much more.

11. Black and White
Black and White’s images marked the beginning of photography, and the trend is leaving no time soon.

The black and white images in the past used to be less clear due to the technology available. However, these days, it is necessary to keep the details in your image to make it look natural.

You should try to keep your image in medium-contrast so that all colors show a unique shade of grey. White and black don’t necessarily have to mean a washed-out image. You can play with the shades and make them appealing according to your concept.

You can also add a slightly warmer tone to your images. It mainly looks pleasing in family pictures and informal portraits.

Choose an Appropriate Photo Editor
If you are new to photo editing, you must understand the theory before implementing it. Additionally, your choice of the editor also impacts the final product.

A beginner using Photoshop directly to edit images is analogous to a level one player fighting the boss. You might do your best to beat it; still, some skills require time to polish.

I suggest using an affordable yet powerful photo editor for the job if you are at the beginning of your learning curve. Thus, you will be able to create better results in less time.

I suggest using Movavi Photo Editor. It is a lightweight product that comes with some fascinating tools. You can easily apply any of the effects mention in this post using Movavi Photo Editor.

Moreover, the software comes at an affordable price when compared to Photoshop. You can lower down the cost further below by using Movavi Discount Codes.

I hope you find the article helpful to understand the photography trends.