2024 Photo Editing Trends
Every year, the technology that photographers, videographers, and content creators use to edit their content gets more and more sophisticated. These editing trends are always driven by larger conversations about marketing and audience, but they all focus on the same goals: getting more eyes on content and driving actions as a result. Editing trends differ based on what’s in style in any given year and market area, of course, but there are some overall themes that we’ve been seeing over the last few months that have indicated a subtle shift in the industry.
Here are five photo editing trends we expect to see in 2024:
#1 Use of AI in photo editing
Just because photographers aren’t using AI to generate entire photos doesn’t mean that they’re letting the power of AI fall by the wayside. Features like the AI mask in CaptureOne and the AI generation tool in Photoshop can be huge time savers for photo editors looking to repair flaws in products, packaging, and scenes. Expect to see more tools geared towards fixing or enhancing photos hit the market as the generational AI tools continue to grow. We love using Photoshop’s generative fill tool—just select an area of the photo and type what you’d like to see into the box. Though the generation software isn’t always spot on, you can generally coax it to a pretty good place.
#2 Return to analog inspo
Over the last year or so, we’ve noticed a trend towards adding grain, imperfections, and analog video effects to content to make it seem aged. Keep watching for content to trend this way, including the content made by high-end photographers and videographers. UGC content continues to pull in high engagement, so adding filters, effects, and grains that make high-end content seem more relatable will be key. Brands doing this well right now are: Oatly! and Glossier.
#3 Editing for multi-platform use
It’s no secret that times are tight across multiple industries. It’s a tough time to raise, and even though standing out online is as important as it’s ever been, brands are tightening marketing budgets. Licensing is a hot topic we’ll discuss on another post, but photographers should be conscious of editing photos so they can be used cross platform. What works for Instagram doesn’t always work for Shopify, LinkedIn, or trade show banners. Talk to your clients to see what applications the photos will be used in, and edit for those specifically. For example, are they adding copy? Add a mask and pull down the saturation in that area of the photo. Are they using a photo for a print ad? Proof it for print and pull up the brightness and contrast to ensure it pops on the page. If their goal is to use the photo in many applications, offer to give them different-sized crops so they can make them work wherever they need it to.
#4 Adding movement to still photos
Algorithms and eyeballs love movement. Finding ways to incorporate movement, whether captured in the frame or in post-processing, is going to be key this year. In terms of post-processing, watch for more apps that make it easy to create cinemagraphs from photos that feature disparate objects. Try using easy-to-use apps like Canva or Photoleap to add simple animations to photos and create video assets. For example, we love importing a photo of a wine pour into Photoleap and using the app to animate the liquid pouring into the glass. It takes minutes, but looks just as good as a cinemagraph that took hours to produce on set. Have a photo of a hand holding a product up against a blue sky? Use apps like these to have the hand gradually move into the frame to catch more eyes and clicks.
#5 Lean in on the high pass filter
As some brands add grain and scratches to their photos, others are going for the almost-surrealist crispness of the high pass filter on Photoshop. If you’re editing photos for a brand that loves huge pops of color, gradients and maximalism, run their photos through the high pass filter to make their images really pop against the competition. This look is going to be a big one for 2024—it’s been floating around cutting edge publications for the last few years, and we expect to see it spread to the hip, edgy brands even more in 2024.
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