Want a 1980s photo of yourself? Try these ChatGPT prompts for Instagram’s latest AI trend

Instagram users are embracing an 80s photo trend using ChatGPT, generating portraits that look like they were taken in the 1980s. Rather than applying a vintage filter to recent photos, people upload their images to ChatGPT and request the AI to recreate the era's style. This trend is also popular on Instagram Stories, with users sharing prompts and encouraging friends to create their own 80s-style portraits.

The 80s-themed portraits feature warm lighting, bright colors, soft focus, and grain to evoke the era's feel. Indian versions of the trend often incorporate the fashion, hairstyles, and accessories of the decade. For example, women might wear colorful sarees, big-curled hair, and statement jewelry, while men could be styled in shirt, high-waisted trousers, moustaches, and neatly combed hair.

Classic Bollywood portraits aim to resemble authentic 1980s studio photographs, with period-appropriate clothing, hairstyles, and accessories. Dramatic studio lighting, soft focus, subtle film grain, and slightly faded colors give the images a genuine 1980s appearance.

Other versions of the trend include Bollywood heroines in voluminous 1980s hairstyles, colorful sarees, and statement jewelry. Hero portraits feature authentic period hairstyles, moustaches (when applicable), tucked or loose shirts, high-waisted trousers, and a classic studio backdrop. Wedding albums and magazine covers from the 1980s India are also popular, with period-appropriate clothing, hairstyles, jewelry, decorations, lighting, and photography styles.

The images feature realistic analogue film grain and colors, with a slightly imperfect look akin to old family photographs. Additionally, an 80s Doordarshan-era look recreates Indian television portraits from that decade, using authentic period clothing, hairstyles, and settings. Lastly, a retro street photograph can be imagined as if taken on an Indian street in 1987, incorporating the surroundings, clothing, hairstyles, vehicles, signs, and colors of that time.