How AI is сhanging the photo industry: The evolution of the last 15 years

We’re living through a photography revolution

Right on our smartphone screens, we are witnessing a turning point in photography history, without fully realizing it ourselves. Now smartphones create professional-quality photos, often not requiring deep knowledge in photography and graphics from users — primary processing happens during the shooting phase in the depths of the smartphone, even unnoticeably for users.

Every time you take a photo on a modern smartphone, dozens of AI algorithms are already working on improving it. Thus, we can say that the line between regular photography and processing has practically disappeared. This is changing entire industries: from social media to e-commerce. A whole new market of AI photo and video editors has emerged, with applications like Facelab, StyleLab, and others becoming prominent representatives. According to Future Market Insights research, last year the global AI editor market was worth $80.3 million and is expected to grow to $217.9 million by 2034.

How did we get here? Let’s remember where it all began.

2010–2016: Filters

In 2010, Instagram changed the rules of the game by introducing simple filters that allowed user photos to look much more professional. Initially, there were only 11 of them, including the now legendary X-Pro II, Earlybird, Lomo-fi, and Sutro. From this point on, photo processing became easier.

In 2012, the VSCO app entered the arena, which raised the photo processing bar even higher: professional presets for color correction appeared, inspired by film photography, more complex effects were added, and so on. At some point, this app created an entire VSCO-girl culture, which was associated with a specific visual style, characterized by pastel tones and minimalism.

2016–2018: AI’s first steps

2016 can be considered as a key year for AI integration in photography. By this year, AI photo analysis capabilities had seriously improved, allowing Google Photos to better recognize faces, places, objects, and even pets. Manual sorting of thousands of photos was no longer necessary. In the same year, Apple introduced Portrait Mode in iPhone 7 Plus. Two lenses and machine learning created the bokeh effect — blurred background, like on professional cameras. Although the first results weren’t perfect (often confused with hair or glasses), this opened a new era in mobile photography.

2019–2021: Smart Processing Similar to What We Already Know

During this period, apps like Remini began to appear, which were among the first to use AI. They could significantly improve the quality of old or blurry photos. Example: a user uploads a grainy photo of their grandmother from the 1960s and receives a clear image within seconds while preserving all facial features.

Smart retouching products emerged, allowing changes to people’s appearance in photos: instead of just blurring skin, they analyzed textures and facial features, allowing natural removal of wrinkles or pimples while maintaining natural processing.

Adobe Lightroom added AI tools for landscape photography. The Sky Replacement feature, for example, allowed changing boring gray skies to more dramatic ones with one click, while the system analyzed lighting and automatically adjusted other parts of the image for realism.

And it was during this period that professional photo processing became available to everyone.

2022–2024: Generative AI revolution

Midjourney and DALL-E showed that AI can not only improve existing photos but create new images “from text”. This influenced photo editors.

Specific example: Lensa AI creates artistic avatars from regular selfies. Users upload several photos, and AI generates dozens of stylized portraits — from fantasy to futuristic. Adobe Photoshop implemented Generative Fill: now you can not only remove unwanted objects from photos but add new ones. For example, if a photographer shot a wedding on a cloudy day, AI can now not only “paint” a sunny sky but add realistic sun glare to the bride’s jewelry.

HOW AI IS CHANGING EXISTING INDUSTRIES RIGHT NOW

Let’s briefly look at how entire industries are changing thanks to AI photo processing.

Restaurants and food photography

Before: Restaurants needed a food photographer with special equipment and time for post-processing.

Now: Modern AI-equipped smartphones automatically recognize food in frame and apply appropriate settings for appetizing photos.

Real Estate photography

Before: Professional equipment and lighting were required for interior shots, with subsequent photo processing.

Now: Even smartphones can take quality photos, and AI automatically corrects perspective, straightens walls, and balances window light.

Wedding photography

Before: Photographers took over a thousand shots and manually processed each significant frame.

Now: AI automatically selects the best shots where all guests are smiling, their eyes are open, applying basic color correction and improving frame lighting.

Family photo albums

Before: Old photos gradually faded and deteriorated.

Now: AI not only restores colors and clarity but also brings old photographs to life by adding animation.

WHAT WILL CHANGE IN THE FUTURE

We’ve seen how the world of photo processing has changed, but evolution in this field continues. And we’ll try to predict what AI will offer us in the future.

Prediction 1: Emergence of personalized processing algorithms

In the future, AI will be able to analyze each user’s processing style — from preferred colors to cropping peculiarities — and automatically apply it to new photos. This will allow creating unique and recognizable visual images in a style characteristic only to a specific person.

Prediction 2: Natural retouching

Retouching technologies will become even more advanced, focusing on preserving the naturalness of human beauty. AI will learn to consider the smallest details, such as skin texture or facial expression, to make the result look organic.

Prediction 3: New level of generative AI

Generative AI tools will not just add or change elements in photos but understand the emotional or artistic context of the image. This will open new possibilities for creativity.

Prediction 4: Video processing

What’s now available for photos will become applicable to video. Progress in processing moving images will allow color correction, adding effects, and changing details in real-time with the same level of simplicity.

What does this all mean for users? For the average user, these changes mean that creating quality visual content will become even easier. Professional photographers will be able to offload some boring mechanical work and focus on the creative components of good photo storytelling.