Unnatural photo editing (a too smoothed skin, too much digital makeup or deep body reshaping) doesn’t belong to current photography editing trends at all. Recently all these techniques were very fashionable and widely spread in magazine and fashion photography, so there were so many photographers who did unnatural color of water, sky, skin, and so on. Therefore today natural photo editing and unique color correction are very trendy. Your photo should be a slightly enhanced version of realism. But you should also make sure you take the best picture to edit!
Having viewed all famous photographers’ works and read their interviews, we’ve gathered top 10 latest photography editing trends. Your photo retouching style is one of the main ways you can stand out from the crowd of numerous amateur photographers and photo retouchers. And clients will pick a photographer based on their photography style.
10 Current Photography Editing Trends
1. Mind Primary Colors
In a nutshell, you must divide all photos into three or four primary colors.Choose natural and slightly muted colors in pastel and matte tones. There are no restrictions on the colors themselves. The main thing is not to set the settings to the maximum. Make face and body skin tones look as natural as it can be.
2. Classical Black & White
Many portrait and street photographers prefer working in black and white image editing format. If you took the photo as a RAW file instead of a JPEG, convert the photograph to black & white using the Adobe Camera RAW instead of Lightroom. A real black and white photo should have both a true white and a true black somewhere in the image.
3. Teal & Orange Look
The teal and orange photo editing is when photos look like it were taken in the perfect glow of a sunset. You can make this coloring by means of Lightroom presets or you could play with shadows and highlights settings yourself to get the ideal ‘Gram.
4. Where to Use Cinematic Effects?
These popular color effects are based on the color grading aesthetics of popular movie genres, such as Horror, Western, Action, Romantic and more. Usually street, travel, and portrait photographers prefer adding this effect. Cinematic effect adds dark and creepy tones to your images with a bluey-green color shift and a strong vignette. It can also replicate the old film look with black & white tones, low contrast and heavy grain.
5. Creative Collages
It is difficult to put together collages even if you are a beginning photo retoucher. Repurposing your photographs could be a great artistic escape. It’s a way to also combine some of the photo editing trends and try different color effects, overlays and the combination of different images to show something completely innovative.
6. Play with Brightness & Contrast
Don’t be afraid of doing brave color choices and effects. Adding different color overlays to photos will make them really bright, a pastel shade or a combination to achieve the duotone effect. Be free to experiment and find many ways to repurpose your existing content.
7. Dark & Moody
Photographers use this photo editing trend for portrait, wedding, and studio photos. These images are so romantic, full of mystery, and lend a movielike feel to a photo. It is characterized by a single lighting source falling across a model or subject located in front of a dark background. It’s a fascinating, evocative image editing style that is easy enough to replicate in modern digital photography. Expose for the highlights. This is probably the most important on-camera skill you need for moody or low-key photography. Brighten shadows more, if necessary. Edit the eyes with care, reduce noise, shift the colors to create more contrast.
8. Light & Airy Photo Editing
To add a natural look, avoid overexposure and let the natural light do its own work well. Photo retouching should enhance and soften natural or carefully placed light and shadows. Add a Bokeh effect, it is just a cute name for blur. You get a lot of blur in your photos by having a low aperture (sometimes listed like this: f/1.8 or f/2.0). So low aperture = narrow depth of field = blur.
9. Soft and Natural
Adding a pinkish glow makes any outdoor photo warm and cute. This photo editing style is usually used for newborn and wedding photographs. It makes rose-tinted skin tones and a filter-like golden glow. If you make image color correction, prefer rosy hues that produce the effect of a crisp spring or autumn morning to attain an Instagram-like effect while maintaining the benefits of soft, traditional lighting.
10. Instagram Look
The last photography editing trend is to repeat favorite Instagram filters on the photos taken by a mirrorless or DSLR camera. Lark (for nature images), Moon (portrait photos), Crema (adds a vintage look), Valencia, X Pro II (dramatic look), Lo-Fi, Hefe are the most frequently used ones. These filters can desaturate reds while pulling out the blues and greens in your photos, add black & white, make colors more vivid and juicy.
Also, if you are editing pictures to be printed, read this blog article to make sure you don’t make any of these common mistakes!
If you liked my post or want to share any other tips and creative ideas, feel free to leave a message. Feedback is always welcome.
Author: Ann Young (Guestpost)
Ann is a New York native, wedding & portrait photographer and head photo retoucher from online photo editing service FixThePhoto. She prefers taking lifestyle photos and edit photos in natural photo editing style.