Introduction
From an outside-in perspective (a marketing term). The professional image editing services market is in a “mature” phase (another marketing term). It is projected to grow at a steady 7% year-on-year1 throughout the decade, expected to be a legitimate Billion dollar industry somewhere around 2025. In this blog lets examine the Top Trends in Image Editing in 2023.
From an inside-out perspective however, things look quite different. The industry continues to be highly fragmented, with multi-tier hierarchies of service provider types and lots of competition in each tier. New technological advances, be they AI-incorporation into Photoshop2, emergence of new alternatives3, growth of AI-driven automatic photo-editing, or even the continuous improvement in DIY editing tools in-built into apps like Instagram continue to push Image Editing firms to constantly innovate.
Major Trends
User preferences and trends are different on platforms like Instagram, and the professional image editing world. Instagram was always basically a sharing platform for people who liked photos. It was meant to democratize photography, and allow people to express themselves freely. New filters, novel uses of color, photographs that reflected public mood and sentiment, and creativity with props, clever edits etc. were all appreciated. However, even as brands and influencers became the loudest voices, the basic sentiment among users was that the photographs should be “genuine”, or should be represented as digital art, not photos. As a result, one sees trends like this year’s “anti-perfect”, “moody hued”, “70’s retro” edit trends.
Trends in professional image editing is a different story. The professional photo editing process focuses on consistency, speed, transparency, and agility to meet changing customer demands, which in turn are affected by rapidly changing consumer trends. The image editing trends in 2023 reflect this reality:
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AI Assistance in Image Editing:
AI is probably the most significant emergent technology in recent years. You won’t find robot photographers in 2023. Instead, expect your favorite image editing tools to become much smarter. For the last few years Adobe has progressively developed its AI Engine that it calls “Sensei”. By late 2022 it had already reduced multiple popular image editing processes to single clicks. In 2023 it promises to do the same with Lightroom. Users have begun notice features like AI-powered masking, and the response is universally enthusiastic!
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Natural Looks:
In 2023 the natural look will find preference. By that we mean “candid camera” type poses, subtle makeup that accentuates natural beauty, and lighting that does not make viewers think it was created in a studio. There could be a lot of reasons for this, including a desire for genuineness and getting in touch with each other after a difficult 2022 when war returned to Europe. This does not mean one-of-a-kind creative shots won’t become popular. However this just means that the human or natural aspect of a photograph will take precedence over computer magic. Photo-editing artists are already adjusting to this new preference through more demure color tones, balanced hues, and even retaining some haze and imperfection in shots.
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Clean Edits:
A continuing (and welcome) trend is to extend the photo edit genuineness to the models too. Freckles and wrinkles, a few extra pounds, the crow’s feet around the eyes will all remain. Sure, photos still need to be enticing and unnecessary mess can be cleaned up. Brand guidelines about airbrushing and edits seems to pretty simple: Remove undesirable temporary imperfections like wayward strands of hair or crumpled clothing, but leave what’s permanent, including moles, scars, tattoos, piercings, etc. We’ll give a big “high five” for that one!
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Nostalgia:
We seem to be missing something. We’re looking longingly at retro photos in attics, taking more monochrome shots, and even composing cinematic shots, later adding vignettes and noise, split tones and black borders to bring digital photos closer to old film photos. Bokeh and sun flares are everywhere too! Not only is there a hankering for styles of a bygone era, there’s also a desire to add big dollops of nature’s magic- more snowflakes in winter shots, more raindrops in summer ones.
Conclusion
This is by no means a comprehensive list. Photography keeps pushing boundaries, also some trends repeat cyclically, and technology keeps creating new twists, challenges and possibilities. In short, creativity is alive, and the photo-editing artist is about to put on a virtuoso performance in 2023!
