The 80s photo app: a 1980s photo of you from one picture

Plenty of camera and editing apps have a retro effect. It warms the colour, adds grain and maybe a date stamp in the corner. That is an 80s photo effect, and it is fine for a holiday snap, but your current haircut and clothes stay put, so the photo still reads as last weekend.

A 1980s photo app goes further. It redraws the person in period hair and clothes and puts them somewhere that belongs to the decade, then adds the flash and the film look on top. That full makeover is what people mean by the 80s trend, and it is what FaceCast's 80s style does.

Hair is the giveaway. The mullet was everywhere, on footy fields, at the pub and in the family album, along with perms on just about everyone's mum, frizzy curls, tall fringes and the odd rat's tail on a kid who begged for one. If an 80s result looks off, the hair has usually come out too tame.

Clothes leaned towards the beach and the backyard. Fluoro singlets and boardshorts, surf labels across the chest, stubbies, thongs, chunky knit jumpers in winter, double denim on a night out and shoulder pads for anything formal. At the beach, coloured zinc cream on noses and terry-towelling hats turn up in a lot of old prints.

The setting matters as much. A Hills Hoist in the background, a Commodore or a Falcon in the driveway, brown brick and a lot of beige. Family photos were mostly 35mm prints from a compact camera with the flash on, dropped off at the chemist or the photo shop and picked up a few days later, usually with doubles.

The class photo is the one most Australians still have in a drawer. Rows on tiered benches, the tallest kids at the back, the front row sitting cross-legged, the teacher standing at one end and a name board out the front with the class and the year. It was often taken outdoors against a brick wall or the school building, squinting into the sun.

Individual portraits were shot in front of a mottled blue or grey backdrop. The bright laser background is more associated with American school pictures of the late 80s and early 90s. FaceCast's 80s style chooses the backdrop on its own, so you may get studio cloth, a room or an outdoor setting. If you want a specific school photo backdrop, a written prompt in ChatGPT or Gemini is the more direct way to ask for it.

Year 12 formal photos of the decade have a look all their own: taffeta or satin dresses with huge puffed sleeves, a corsage on the wrist, a hired tux with a coloured bow tie and cummerbund, and a lot of hairspray. The photos were usually taken in the backyard or the front garden before heading off, then again at the venue.

In many towns, the debutante ball was the other big night: white gowns, long gloves and partners in tuxedos. To get closer to either look, start from a photo where you are already dressed up. In the sample photos on this site, a wedding or graduation photo came back as an 80s wedding or graduation, so a dressed-up original gives the style the right cue.

Group photos work when everyone is in the one picture and their faces are not tiny. The result keeps each person and moves the whole lot into the 80s together, which is how you end up with four mates at what looks like a party in someone's rumpus room.

Family photos are a good use too, especially with mum or dad in them, since they can hold the result up against the real albums. Pets stay as they are, though they might gain a bandana.

A fair few searches for this in Australia read like “1980 ka photo banane wala app” or “1980 wala app”. It is the same trend and the same kind of app. FaceCast's interface is in English, among other languages such as Arabic, French, Spanish and Portuguese, but not Hindi, and the 80s style works the same whatever language your phone is set to.

The photo you pick is processed to create the 80s image, which means it is sent off your phone to be worked on. What is kept, and for how long, is set out in the FaceCast privacy policy; have a look at it before using a photo of somebody else. Ask your mates before you restyle and post a group shot.

The result is a still image. It does not make videos, it does not age you or make you younger, and it does not swap your face for a famous one. Your face comes across from the original; everything around it is dressed in the 80s.