A Guide to 'The Instagram Look'

I'll preface this by saying that I am in no way bashing the Instagram community, other photographers, or their style. I got to be curious about why these Instagram portrait photographers were gaining such popularity. If you search any of the various Instagram "superhubs," you'll see this style crowding the pages. Once deconstructed, there isn't much to the look that has exploded across social media in the last year. Though there isn't much to it, there is certainly some work involved. It's not always as simple as a few sliders in the Instagram editor.

The Fade

This might be the most obvious addition to these edits. The shadows and occasionally the highlights have some major fade added to them. A dreamy look seems to be the name of the game and we all know we don't see life with that kind of haze, making the image feel surreal. Photoshop and Lightroom both offer the ability to add this effect, and while Instagram also has a "fade" slider, you have little control over the effect this way. I used Lightroom to add this effect, here's how.

Let's look at our base image. We have a fairly well exposed raw file with a decently balanced histogram.

In order to have control of the Black Point and White Point (the dots in each corner of the curve), we must first press the button in the bottom right corner of the Tone Curve tab as I have in this image. When hovered over you will be given a prompt that says “Click to Edit Point Curve.” From there, your Tone Curve tab should look like the image above. Now let's add the fade. Grab the bottom left point, the Black Point, and drag it up along the edge of the histogram like so. Once that's done, you'll see that the image becomes flat and unappealing.

Not great right? This is the point where a lot of the dramatic effect comes in. Using the Tone Curve we're going to pull the shadow values down to darken those parts of the image separate from the highlights. Your Tone Curve should look something like this afterwards. Keep in mind all of this should be adjusted based on the individual image and to your taste. Not every image will need the same amount of fade or shadow adjustment.

This still isn't great, mainly because the highlights have remained untouched. I prefer to give them a little bump to add some contrast to the image. Use the top right quarter of the tone curve to bring up the highlights.

That's really all there is to it when it comes to the faded look. It's a simple addition to the image that makes a huge impact on this look. Keep in mind also that this will have varying success depending on the contrast and lighting of the image. If your subject isn't well lit, they'll fall into shadow. This may or may not be a look you're going for but if you know what to look for while you're shooting you'll come out with better results.

The Grain

Almost every one of these portraits I see has some noticeable grain in the image. I'm not talking about digital noise, but added grain via editing software. I've always found it funny that for years photographers, myself included, complained about how they couldn't get super clean images at higher ISOs but now we're adding grain to everything. I definitely add grain to a lot of my images, but it's an interesting trend. This effect is simple: Find the grain slider under the Effects tab in Lightroom and add however much you'd like. You can also adjust the grain size and roughness to mimic higher speed films.

Basic Corrections/Contrast

There are a few other luminance adjustments that I usually make because I don't feel the Tone Curve can do all of the work for this style. I often drag down the highlights and shadows a little more here. Depending on the image, I may bring the shadows up to include more detail or even move the black/white sliders to increase or decrease contrast as necessary. I have a preset made for this style and this is what my Basic tab looks like with it applied.

From here's it is basically finished. I chose to display the final image in black and white, done simply by pressing Black and White in the Basic tab. For some images it may be necessary to tone the highlights or shadows of an image. There are a few ways to do this, including the Tone Curve or the Split Toning tab in Lightroom. I prefer the Tone Curve to do this as I can adjust individual color channels to really get a good mix of colors if necessary. Split toning simply adds one color at a certain saturation value to either the highlight or shadow.

Love it or hate it, it's a style. Trends come and go but this is certainly a big part of photography now. With this style cramming its way into the Internet, it may very well define the era. I can imagine looking back on my old work and thinking about this look much the way that the styles of the 80s and 90s are looked down upon. I like this look and while it doesn't work for every photo, some of these techniques can be applied elsewhere. What do you think of the Instagram style craze?