How to Make Photos Look Vintage and Retro

Various decades from the past seem to be making a resurgence in recent years. From rebooted TV shows and new fashion collections, there's plenty for everyone. Vintage and vintage aesthetics are still common on Instagram, with celebrities and social media influencers editing their photos to inspire memories from the past. It's also a fantastic look for your feeds!

Here are some tips for getting the vintage / lo-fi look for your own feed:

1. Use retro-style filters.

Giving your images the desired retro feel (whether taken with a GoPro, DSLR, or smartphone) doesn't require a lot of different applications or even technological know-how. In particular, studies have shown that using filters on Instagram increases the number of Likes on your posts!

We have 2 specific preset packs that can help with your vintage photo desires. One's our vintage preset and the other is our Arizona preset pack!

Our Vintage Preset Pack - 10 one click retro polaroid vintage filters

Arizona Preset Pack - Polaroid Warm Vibes Mobile Lightroom

2. Experiment with grain in Lightroom.

Adding grain to your images is a great way to lend them an antique or retro feel. Select ‘Grain' from the effects menu in Lightroom. To get the exact look you like, move the slider around.

When increasing the grain on your shot, make sure to use a delicate touch. A small amount may not be visible, whereas a large amount may degrade the quality of your edit.

3. Make manual adjustments and start from scratch.

You can still edit the settings of your images manually if none of the pre-made filters fit the aesthetics you're looking for. This will allow you to be more imaginative with your editing, and you'll end up with something truly special! Check out our guide here

To achieve a vintage or retro effect, you can change the following settings:

Saturation: this controls how vivid the colours in your picture are. Desaturating your picture will help bring out the colours of the filters you're using, as well as any other edits you're making to get the retro look.

Highlight: Increases or reduces the brightness of the photograph's bright spots.

Contrast: Reducing contrast will help you achieve that lo-fi look.

Warmth: Changing the warmth of your picture will make it feel warmer or colder. Warmer images go well with the retro aesthetic.

Vignette: The vignette effect darkens and lightens the picture corners for a more dramatic look.

Pro Tip: You don’t have to manually start over with all of these steps each and every time you have to adjust your image settings. There are ways or tips to speed up and streamline your process so it’s best to try them all and figure out which ones will suit your workflow the most.

Don't be afraid to experiment with the photo's settings. And if your images are new or have vastly different compositions, manually tweaking and editing them would help you achieve the same look every time.

Making images look vintage for Instagram posts is a lot of fun, and it's also quite easy! It's also a dynamic style that can be used on almost any kind of picture.

Using Clubhouse To Skyrocket Your Social Media Career

Clubhouse is establishing itself as an innovative engagement platform for your company or brand, one invite at a time. While it is exclusive at the moment to invite-only, even if you haven't got a link yet don't despair we've got your back. Start thinking about how you'll market yourself now so that when the time comes, you'll be ready to go!

The famous audio-only app offers an array of opportunities to create community, engage with audiences, and establish yourself as an industry expert. Are you ready to join the Clubhouse fun? This is one discussion you'll want to listen in on while we discuss four ways to build an engaging marketing strategy. Brands and designers will use Clubhouse to reach out to new markets and develop relationships.

Here are four ways to maximize your social media growth if you plan to use Clubhouse marketing in your brand strategy:

• Enhance Your Company's Clubhouse Bio

• Participate in Industry-Related Rooms and Discussions

• Create a room that caters to your specific industry niche.

• Collaborate with market leaders in that industry to reach new audiences

#1: Make sure your Clubhouse Bio is fully optimised and ready to reach

Since the first three lines of your Clubhouse bio are shown in the profile preview, it's a smart idea to make a strong first impression.

In layman's terms? Have it crystal clear who you are and what you do. Describe how you can assist other Clubhouse guests.

Make your profile as descriptive and entertaining as possible beyond the first three lines by including related accolades, social evidence, and media mentions.

It's also a smart idea to use important keywords to improve the odds of being on Clubhouse's explore page.

#2: Participate in Industry-Related Rooms and Discussions

When it comes to Clubhouse, speaking up is simply the way forward. It's also the most straightforward way to achieve visibility and raise brand recognition. If you're trusted enough to be on stage then you can get their attention quickly and easily with the right strategy

Enter rooms that are important to your business and use the stage to your benefit by being involved. However, speaking for the sake of being heard is not a good idea. You must have some insightful topics to talk about otherwise you're just another listener. You need to be a leader here.

Raise your voice, participate in group meetings, and spot yourself as a business leader to bring insight to conversations.

TIP: While it might be enticing to enter rooms with tens of thousands of members, smaller rooms are a better option as you have much more of a chance to have the stage and to be able to push yourself out there!

#3: Create an Industry-Related Space.

Create a room in Clubhouse and get rid of your stage fright one convo at a time. This is the perfect opportunity to be able to publically speak without the pressure of face to face events and is great for starting out. Especially in pandemic times.

You will reach out to the target demographic by moderating a room outside of the boardroom. It provides a safe environment for people to speak openly and gain useful perspectives in real-time.

If you want to get some suggestions on your new product? Start by hosting a room, asking questions, and taking notes.

On Clubhouse, here's how to start a room:

To begin, go to your “hallway” and tap the “+ Start a Room” button at the bottom of the page.

To name your room, select "+Add a Topic" (in 60 characters or less.)

Following that, you'll be given three room choices to pick from:

The term “open” refers to anything that is available to the general public.

“Social,” which is only available to users you follow, and “Closed,” which is only available to users you want.

Then press "Let's go."

#4: Work with industry leaders to reach out to new audiences

Two voices are stronger than one when it comes to Clubhouse.

The best part about Clubhouse is how simple it is to co-host a club or room with other experts in your profession.

You will utilize their following and target a community that is already interested in your niche by collaborating with related brands and creators.

Here's a list of rooms you might like to create!

Share something that motivates or encourages you.

Organize a Q&A session with the audience.

Share a customer testimonial or a result from one of the clients.

Interview a colleague in the industry.

Teach a brief class on a topic that is important to your business.

Discuss the advantages of one of your goods or services.

Discuss the inner workings of the business.

How To Brand Your Youtube Channel For Success

So you've read our "Getting Started on Youtube" blog post and now you're here!

The next move is to BRAND your YouTube channel while also incorporating your niche. Branding is extremely critical and will absolutely help you stand out from the crowd. I'd spend some time on this and think about how you want your channel to look and sound. People appreciate consistency, and the more you keep your channel and all visuals consistent, the more people would want to stick around and be a part of your YouTube world.

Channel branding and why this is so important

Branding is essentially telling your story and your "why" through your channel's copy, photographs, and artwork. No matter where you are with your channel, spending a few minutes (or hours) on your branding will help you realign your purpose, niche, and why.

Spend some quality time with your new best friends, Canva and Picmonkey, as a first step, if you haven't already. By all means, if you already have graphic arts experience with Photoshop, take advantage of it and put it to good use! If you're anything like me, you'll want to spend some time learning about those two platforms.

While pic monkey has a lot of great features for free, Canva is definitely my favourite over picmonkey just for functionality and range of templates and textures and elements. They are both free but I would recommend absolutely to pay for canva premium! With canva you can also just reuse and repurpose content with one resize click! This is amazing for a number of reasons. One, a few well-designed templates can help you preserve a cohesive and consistent look on your channel by using identical fonts and colours in your thumbnails and blog posts. Second, it saves a massive amount of time!

The Channel Homepage and how it is the first impression of you

Next, let's concentrate on your YouTube channel home page. This page is crucial, as it also determines whether or not anyone can subscribe to your channel. The majority of your subscribers will come from this page. If anyone finds your channel through a video they found through a search, they are likely to spend some time perusing it, especially this important page. After a few seconds of trying it out, they will decide whether or not to subscribe.

Think of when you search out a channel for the first time. What kinds of stuff do you want to see? I can't emphasise how crucial this page is to your channel's overall brand and development.

Think of the colours and fonts you like with all of your graphics when you're playing around with PicMonkey and Canva. People appreciate reliability, so the simplest way to start building your brand image is to use two to three colours and two fonts that you'll use on your thumbnails, in-video graphics, and in your YouTube banner. Of course, you can still change your mind, modify it, and tweak it later, but designing the picture from the beginning would give you and your channel legitimacy.

Youtube Channel Banner

The majority of users can see your YouTube artwork first when they visit your channel. Your artwork should be a reflection of you, the niche you are targeting and your upload schedule. You  must have at least one picture of yourself, and a short explanation of the relevance your channel has on your viewers.    Alternatively, you should have a short overview of your niche. 

If at all possible, I would stop using more than one of the large volume terms like  Beauty, Fashion, Lifestyle, Makeup, and similar terms. You can use certain terms, but I would add a few more phrases or words that are more memorable. The key aim is to explain who you are and what viewers might hope to see on your channel in a short overview. Keep it short and sweet! 

Keep the colours and fonts you choose when experimenting with the graphic tools and use them to build your banner. Another thing you should think about is designing a logo.

*A comment on your channel icon photo. I recommend that you try taking a picture of yourself against a bright backdrop. It doesn't have to be a pro shot; simply take your camera and a tripod and take a few simple, high-quality images against a solid brightly coloured backdrop.

THUMBNAILS - THE BIGGEST CONVERSION TOOL

Thumbnails are crucial for getting viewers to click on your video as it appears in search results or in their feed. Thumbnails should be vibrant and eye-catching, with big, legible fonts. You will want your thumbnail to be consistent with the look and feel of your channel. You want someone to see one of your thumbnails and automatically recognise it as your channel. You can be as imaginative as you like with your thumbnails, as long as they stick out and are clear and not clickbait.

Youtube are cracking down on clickbait thumbnails and titles so while being exciting and drawing them in is the goal... don't say something that is completely untrue about your video on your thumbnail. This just makes people bounce which lowers your engagment rate.

Channel Trailer, their first watch

After that, I'd like you to create a channel trailer. You have the luxury of highlighting one video at the top of your YouTube home page, under your channel banner. This is a great opportunity to showcase either your BEST video or to create a channel trailer demonstrating the value proposition of your channel and give a glimpse of your personality. Obviously, if you're just starting out, skip this step and come back to it in 6 months when you've accumulated enough work to put together a trailer. Whether you don't have time to make a teaser or if you've just had your channel for a few months, it's fine to fill the slot with one of your favourite ones.

However, I would advise you to make the "advert" for your channel at some point. There are many reasons why having a channel trailer is important. One is to gain potential followers, and the other is to use it as a platform to reach out to advertisers and highlight yourself and your editing style.

PLAYLISTS ALWAYS!

After that, I'd like you to make playlists! Playlists are very useful, but not everyone takes advantage of them. You should make playlists for a variety of reasons. A playlist, for the purposes of this branding tutorial, allows a prospective subscriber to get a taste of the kinds of videos you make without having to watch anything in full. They can see the variety of videos you make at a glance.

End Screens and Intros

When people watch your video, the first thing they see is an intro. You should try making one to ensure that all of your videos are consistent. All you need is a two-second video shot that says something about the video to come. The biggest bounce rate comes from those who start and don't like the way it is edited, the content or unfortunately the person who's filming (it's not personal, it's all marketing and impressions.

You want to make an end card that incorporates your "brand" elements such as your logo, headshot, fonts, and colours while showing viewers what they can expect from your next video. Kelly Stamps does a small teaser of her next video so people will want to come back week after week.